Sights—The Bund and the Peace Hotel; Yu Garden for a visit to the Huxining teahouse; Jade Buddha Temple and its namesake statue; People's Square for people-watching.

Museums—The Shanghai Museum on People's Square for both its architecture and collections; the Shanghai Art Museum in the old Shanghai Racing Clubhouse; the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre; the Propaganda Poster Art Center for insights into China's turbulent postrevolutionary years; Shanghai Science and Techology Museum.

Memorable Meals—Szechuan duck at Meilongzhen; Nanxiang Dumpling House in Yu Garden for the city's special xiaolongbao pork or crab soup dumplings; fine dining at the Bund, especially at Jean Georges for its retro-meets-modern-Shanghai decor and Asian fusion menu; M on the Bund, for its glamour, view and mouthwatering food; home-cooked Shanghainese fare at stylish 1221; authentic Thai or Indian cuisine in an old Shanghai setting at Lan Na Thai and Hazara.

Late Night—A Kunju opera performance; elegant cocktails at Glamour Bar; drinks and dancing at DKD or Mint; jazz at Club JZ or blues at Cotton Club; barhopping in Xintiandi or Tongren Lu; a night cruise on the Huangpu River.

Walks—Admiring the buildings in the old French concession or International Settlement; taking in the view of the Huangpu River along the Bund; strolling through the quaint Old City; watching the crowds at pedestrianized Nanjing Dong Lu; enjoying the morning tai chi, mah jong and dancing in Jing'an Park or Fuxing Park.

Especially for Kids—Oriental Pearl TV Tower with its views from the top and Space City at the bottom; aquatic flora and fauna at Shanghai Ocean Aquarium; crossing the river in the tourist tunnel.

Modern Shanghai is split into two distinct and vastly different districts by the Huangpu River. The west side is called Puxi, former home to the international settlements. Puxi still boasts the historic architecture for which Shanghai is famous. To the east is Pudong—a modern economic development area that Deng Xiaoping designated as China's future financial and commercial heart. Though Pudong boasts the city's stock exchange, financial district and international airport, Puxi is still considered the city center. The Bund (Waitan) is Puxi's waterfront boulevard—it lines the west side of the Huangpu River and is considered to be Shanghai's main tourist attraction.

In its heyday, Shanghai was delineated by its foreign concessions, and the former borders still serve a purpose. The old Chinese city lies within the Zhonghua Lu-Renmin Lu circle. The former International Settlement (the British and the U.S. concessions merged in 1862) stretches north of the Old City. It's bordered by the Huangpu River to the east, Huashan Lu to the west, Suzhou Creek to the north and Yanan Lu to the south. The old French concession lies south of the Yanan Lu overpass, north of Zhaojiabang Lu, and stretches from Xujiahui in the west to the Bund in the east (with the exception of the northern half of the old Chinese city). Much of the city's sightseeing, dining and shopping lie in the former French concession, including Xintiandi, the popular pedestrian-friendly entertainment district that houses Western-style clubs, restaurants and shops in a colonial ambience.

Shanghai's beginning was humble—little more than a small fishing village nestled on the Yangtze River delta, where China's longest and most important river completes its 3,906-mi/6,300-km journey to the East China Sea. In the late 1830s, however, the Chinese emperor's efforts to stem the trade in opium (largely conducted by British merchants) within the country's borders resulted in the First Opium War of 1840-42, which China lost. The victorious British forced the Chinese to open up a series of treaty ports along the nation's eastern seaboard, thus allowing increased trade between China and foreign powers. Shanghai was one such port.

The small fishing village was soon divided into independent and autonomous "concessions" administered by France, Britain and the U.S., who brought their own particular cultures, architectural styles and sensibilities to the Chinese city. By the 1930s, 90,000 foreigners called Shanghai home, including British, Americans, French, Germans and Japanese, as well as Russians who had fled communism in their own country. And though the burgeoning metropolis had its own walled Chinese city, many native residents also chose to live in the foreign settlements, where employment was more readily available and foreign police forces administered rule of law, affording a certain level of protection from warlords. In 1939, the city boasted a population of 4 million.

The eclectic mix of cultures and the city's increasing openness to Western influence had a profound effect on Shanghai, which quickly became internationally famous for its culture, arts, opulent buildings and vibrant commerce. But the gap between the haves and the have-nots was wide—according to firsthand accounts, it was not uncommon for wealthy foreigners to nonchalantly step over starving, dying Chinese in the street without a pause.

This paradox of wealth and degradation gave rise to an increasing sense of anger and injustice among many Chinese, and in 1921, 13 delegates including Mao Zedong held the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China at a site that is now open to the public in the Xintiandi area of the city. The Congress started a movement that would change all of China.

Following fierce fighting against occupying Japanese forces from the late 1930s to 1945, and a civil war against the ruling Kuomintang hot on its heels, the Red Army was triumphant, and the communists established the new People's Republic of China in 1949. By then, most foreigners had fled Shanghai, and the city was closed to the outside world behind what was known as "the bamboo curtain." During the ensuing years, Shanghai was deliberately neglected by a Beijing-centric government scornful of the city's decadent past, and it was starved of investment and attention. A sign of its future renaissance, however, came during U.S. President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 visit to China, when the Shanghai Communique, a series of formal agreements to re-establish Sino-U.S. diplomatic ties, was signed in Shanghai.

But the city's resurrection wasn't immediate. Shanghai was made to wait until after the launch, in the late 1980s, of Deng's economic reforms before it could hurriedly re-embrace the internationalism that defined its prerevolution identity. Today it's second only to Hong Kong as China's most open city—socially, culturally and economically. As Deng famously said, "If China is a dragon, Shanghai is its head." Now, less than two decades after Shanghai was officially given the go-ahead to embrace economic development, it is preparing for its biggest international challenge: hosting the 2010 World Expo.

Shanghai got its name from its location. Located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, where it empties into the East China Sea, the city name is loosely translated as "above or next to the sea."

The vibrant Pudong area was built on a field of former rice paddies. The dynamic skyline includes mainland China's current tallest skyscraper, the Jinmao Tower—fast being overtaken by the under-construction Shanghai World Trade Center.

The term "to shanghai" was coined in the 19th century when laborers were unwittingly recruited into indentured servitude as crew for various ships.

In 2010, Shanghai will host the six-month-long World Expo, slated to be the largest ever hosted. The giant Expo site is being built beside the Huangpu River, as are luxury hotels, subway lines, tourism facilities and city infrastructure projects.