A slick, central district around the golden Jing'an Temple — upscale malls, good restaurants and easy metro links, straddling the line between the old concessions and the modern city. Convenient, comfortable and a touch quieter than the Bund; a well-connected base with the temple, parks and great eating on the doorstep and everywhere in easy reach.
A look around
What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.
€80–170
typical per night in China
The sensible middle
Typical prices for Shanghai — neither steal nor splurge.
Where it sits
The circle is Jing'an and roughly a 10-minute walk around it.
How far is everything?
From the middle of this area to the city's headline sights — pick your own on the city page and these become your list.
- The French Concession18 min walk1.5 km
- Xintiandi & Tianzifang9 min taxi2.9 km
- Shanghai Museum9 min taxi2.9 km
- Nanjing Road10 min taxi3.2 km
- Yu Garden & the Old City13 min taxi4.5 km
- The Bund14 min taxi4.7 km
- A Huangpu River cruise15 min taxi5.1 km
- Shanghai Tower & the Pudong skyline18 min taxi5.8 km
On your doorstep
What you’re living next to if you stay here.
- 5.Shanghai food & xiaolongbao — Shanghai's kitchen is a delight — its icon the xiaolongbao soup dumpling and the pan-fried, sesame-topped shengjianbao, alongside sweet-savoury 'red-braised' pork, hairy crab in season and a whole world of noodle and dumpling shops. Eat them at an old canteen or a queue-out-the-door specialist; cheap, comforting and unmistakably local. Mind the scalding soup inside.
- 8.Jade Buddha Temple — A working Buddhist monastery of golden halls and drifting incense, home to two serene Buddha statues carved from single blocks of Burmese white jade. A calm, colourful oasis amid the modern city, with monks chanting and a good vegetarian restaurant; one of the most active and atmospheric temples in Shanghai, and a lovely counterpoint to the skyscrapers.
- 11.Jing'an Temple — A dazzling golden-roofed Buddhist temple sitting incongruously — and spectacularly — among the glass skyscrapers of central Shanghai, its warm timber halls and gilt Buddhas floodlit at night. The surreal clash of ancient and ultra-modern is the whole point; small enough for a quick visit, striking enough to be unforgettable, and right on the metro in a great shopping district.
- 18.1933 Old Millfun — A 1930s Art Deco slaughterhouse of spiralling concrete ramps and bridges, now a surreal creative complex of shops and cafés. An architectural rabbit-warren; get lost in it.
- 20.M50 art district — A gritty riverside cluster of old mills turned into Shanghai's leading contemporary-art district — galleries, studios and graffiti. Free to wander, endlessly cool.
When are you staying?
Booking.com & Airbnb open searched to Jing'an; flights via Google Flights.