Shanghai's 100 Century-Old Buildings: A District-by-District Walking Guide

Shanghai is one of the easiest cities in China to read through architecture. The city does not just preserve old buildings. It uses them. That is why a 100-building walking map makes sense here: it lets you move district by district and understand how Shanghai grew from treaty-port streets into a layered modern metropolis.

Instead of turning the list into a flat checklist, the smarter way is to group it by neighborhood. That is how Shanghai actually works on foot. Some streets are best in the morning. Some blocks are better when the light is low. Some buildings are worth entering, while others are better seen from across the road.

How to use this guide

If you only have one day, choose one district. If you have two, combine one central district with one riverfront district. The best Shanghai architecture walk is not the longest one. It is the one that lets you notice materials, setbacks, façades, courtyards, and street rhythm without rushing.

What follows is a practical version of the list you shared, arranged by district and cleaned up for readers who want a walkable route rather than a data dump.

Jing'an: old residences, civic memory, and Nanjing West Road

Jing'an is one of the strongest starting points because it mixes famous villas, old residences, and a few larger public buildings that still anchor the district visually. Start around Jing'an Temple, then fan out along Huashan Road, Wuding Road, and Nanjing West Road.

1. Huashan Art Museum
2. Cai Yuanpei Former Residence
3. Drummond Residence
4. Yuanli Pawnshop Site
5. Butterfly Bay Community Canteen
6. Eileen Chang Former Residence
7. Site of the Sihang Warehouse
8. Prada Rong Zhai
9. Moller Villa
10. Zhang Garden
11. Heto Old Residence
12. Zha Residence
13. Deyi Building
14. Grand Cinema
15. Jinganli Tang Residence
16. Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce

The best part of this district is that the buildings do not feel isolated. They sit in a living urban fabric. That is what makes Jing'an useful for architecture lovers: it is not a museum district, it is a city district that still carries memory.

Xuhui: villas, churches, conservatories, and academic Shanghai

Xuhui is where the city becomes softer and more residential. It is the district for lane houses, cultural institutions, music, church architecture, and the old intellectual Shanghai that still survives under the plane trees.

17. Ba Jin Former Residence
18. Romeo Balcony
19. Ke Ling Former Residence
20. Xujiahui Library Tower
21. Soong Ching-ling Former Residence
22. Shanghai Conservatory of Music
23. Oriental Musical Instrument Museum
24. White House on Fenyang Road
25. Shanghai Symphony Museum
26. 66 Wutong Courtyard
27. Shanghai Peking Opera Training Hall
28. Xia Yan Former Residence
29. Shanghai Meteorological Museum
30. Pathé Little House
31. Xujiahui Cathedral
32. Tushanwan Museum
33. Former Xuhui School
34. Shanghai Arts and Crafts Museum
35. Wukang Building
36. Jianye Li
37. Yuejie Hengshan Road 8
38. Longhua Pagoda

If Jing'an is about density, Xuhui is about atmosphere. This is the district where you should slow down. The best strategy is to walk a few blocks, stop, look up, and then keep moving.

Huangpu: riverfront finance, grand hotels, and civic landmarks

Huangpu is the city’s historical center, so the architecture mix is more formal and more public-facing. You get churches, banks, hotels, clubs, publishing houses, civic halls, and the famous Bund façades that turn Shanghai into a skyline story.

39. Holy Trinity Church
40. Muen Church
41. Old Municipal Government Building
42. Shamei Building
43. Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce Old Site
44. Riverside Building
45. Garden Hotel exterior
46. Taikoo Dock / Taikoo Yanghang
47. Shanghai Telecom Museum
48. Asia Building
49. Shanghai Club Building
50. SPDB Building
51. Shanghai Labor Model Gallery
52. HSBC-style banking building
53. Bank of East Asia Building
54. Rockbund Art Museum area
55. Four Seasons Savings Bank Building
56. Shen Bao Building
57. Great World
58. Fuxing Library
59. Soong Ching-ling-related residences and sites
60. Shanghai Concert Hall
61. Jinmen Hotel
62. International Hotel
63. Workers' Cultural Palace
64. Shanghai History Museum
65. Western Youth Association
66. Merchant's Guild Hall
67. Shanghai Science Hall exterior
68. Yangtze Hotel exterior

This is the strongest district for people who want the “big Shanghai” version of heritage. It is where finance, media, religion, and public culture overlap. If you only have time for one downtown architecture run, Huangpu is the most obvious choice.

Hongkou: publishing, rescue history, and left-bank memory

Hongkou is one of the city’s most interesting heritage districts because it combines waterfront history, publishing, political memory, and a deeper social layer. It is less polished than the Bund and therefore often more rewarding.

77. DuoLun Road White Residence
78. 1933 Old Millfun
79. Jewish Refugees Museum
80. HaiPai Culture Center
81. Ba Jin Library
82. 1925 Bookstore
83. China Securities Museum
84. Shanghai Postal Museum
85. Lu Xun and Uchiyama Memorial Bookstore
86. Left League Site Memorial
87. Shanghai Mansion
88. Lu Xun Former Residence

If you care about literary Shanghai, publishing history, or the city’s more layered twentieth-century stories, Hongkou deserves a full afternoon. It also gives you some of the best examples of adaptive reuse in the city.

Pudong: local villages, towers, and outlying heritage

Pudong is not just skyscrapers. The farther edges of the district still hold older temples, houses, and local heritage sites that make the area more interesting than people expect.

74. Yangxian Hall
75. Chen Guichun Residence
76. Tangzhen Catholic Church

These are not the most famous stops on the list, but they remind you that heritage in Shanghai is not limited to the city center. It also survives where the city keeps expanding outward.

Changning, Minhang, Songjiang, and Putuo: the outer-layer route

The outer districts matter because they show how heritage survives outside the classic downtown loop. In Changning, you get villas, university remnants, and club architecture. In Minhang and Songjiang, you move into ancient-town and garden territory. In Putuo, the surviving lane houses and commercial compounds keep the city’s everyday texture alive.

89. Qibao Ancient Town
90. Drunken White Pool Park
91. Guangfulin Cultural Site
92. Navy Club Pool
93. Tsutaya Bookstore site
94. Xiyan Hall
95. Former Saint John's University site
96. Wang Boqun Residence
97. Udagawa Memorial Hall
98. Sunke Villa
99. Hongshoufang
100. Tongyi Lane

These areas are better treated as half-day or full-day side missions. They are not the core of the classic Shanghai architecture walk, but they are important if you want the city’s heritage map to feel complete.

How to turn the list into an actual trip

For a first-time visitor, I would split the list into four days: Jing'an and Xuhui on one day, Huangpu on another, Hongkou on a third, and an outer-district day for Qibao, Guangfulin, or Changning depending on your interests. That gives you a cleaner reading of Shanghai than trying to sprint through all 100 points at once.

The most important thing is not the count. It is the sequence. Shanghai rewards sequence more than speed.

Bottom line

This 100-building list works because Shanghai itself is a city of layers. The district names are not just map labels. They are different urban arguments about what the city was, what it became, and what parts of the past it still keeps alive. If you follow the list district by district, you will get a much clearer Shanghai than you would from a generic top-100 list.