Road naming in Shanghai
The criss-crossing roads are as important to a city as the blood of our human body. A city often has countless roads. Each city has its own different style and characteristics in naming roads. Shanghai has its own unique way of naming roads.
On today’s traffic map of Shanghai, you can see many urban roads named after provinces and cities in my country. The names of most provinces, autonomous regions and many large and medium-sized cities in my country can be found on the Shanghai road traffic map. This is the biggest feature of Shanghai's road naming.
This method of naming urban roads after provinces and cities in my country originated from the British Concession in Shanghai. In the mid-19th century, before the opening of Shanghai County as a port, there was originally a vast field of crisscrossed fields. However, as the Western powers opened the door to the Qing government and established concessions in Shanghai, many roads were gradually built in this area. At first, the roads in the concession were named very casually. There were basically no rules to follow and it was not easy for people to remember.
Until the 1860s, the British Concession in Shanghai had formed a relatively complete road system. In order to facilitate memory and appear neat, the British Concession Industry Bureau stipulated in 1865 that among the 27 roads in the concession, the north-south trunk roads were named after the names of Chinese provinces, and the east-west trunk roads were named after the names of major Chinese cities. They changed some of the old road names. The road naming in the British and American Concessions in 1865 had a certain impact on the French Concession. The names of famous Chinese mountains and rivers became the source of their road naming. For example, Xijiang Road in the French Concession falls into this type of road. After the concession became history in China, Xijiang Road was renamed and became today's Huaihai Middle Road.
However, the naming principles of the British concession have not been strictly implemented and promoted, especially in areas where colonists crossed the border to build roads. Many roads were named after foreigners. Today's Tianshan Road was called Lincoln Road when the United States built a cross-border road in 1925; It was called "Gordon" Road; the names of these roads were changed after the Japanese invaders and the Wang puppet regime took control of the Shanghai Concession in 1943.
Historically, in order to eliminate the various influences left by the British and American forces in the concession, the Wang Puppet regime replaced all roads named after Europeans and Americans with Chinese place names. For example, the roads named after the British King Ai De Aidoya Road named after Emperor Hua VII was changed to Da Shanghai Road, which is today's Yan'an East Road; at the same time, the names of roads with traces of the names of the old concessions were also changed, such as the original public concession and Huajie Zhabei. The boundary road "Jie Road" was changed to Tianmu Road.
After a large-scale adjustment and change of road names in 1943, Shanghai roads named after Chinese provinces and cities accounted for the majority of Shanghai’s urban roads. After liberation, this method of naming roads in Shanghai after provinces and cities in China has been used.
Now, in Pudong, Shanghai, the ways of naming roads are becoming increasingly rich. In addition to urban roads named mainly after place names, there are also new urban roads named after famous scientists.
Generally speaking, roads named after Chinese provinces and cities still account for the majority of roads in Shanghai. Today, as the number of urban roads in Shanghai continues to increase, how to find new ways of naming roads has become a new issue that Shanghai place name experts are thinking about