Hongqiao International Central Business District

The Hongqiao International Central Business District (虹桥国际中央商务区, Hóngqiáo Guójì Zhōngyāng Shāngwùqū) is a business district built around Shanghai’s western transport hub. For a visitor it is mainly a place to pass through, or to eat and shop between a train and a flight; it also holds the National Exhibition and Convention Center. It is not a historic quarter. The district was set up in 2009, on land west of Hongqiao airport.

Shanghai’s 2022–2035 commercial plan names it one of the city’s 29 city-level commercial centres, about 1.1 km² with some 400,000 m² of planned shop and mall floor space. The plan builds its second, ‘west international consumption cluster’ on the Hongqiao hub.

The plan for it grew out of the transport hub, which the Shanghai government approved in 2006. In 2009 the Shanghai Party committee decided to set up the business district, and land tenders began in 2010. It spans four districts (Minhang, Changning, Qingpu and Jiading). Chinese Wikipedia gives its area in several incompatible figures, from about 86.6 to 151.4 square km, and a core area of 4.7 square km. The commercial district is the core.

Two shopping complexes stand there. Hongqiao Tiandi (虹桥天地) was the first commercial project completed in the district, opening at the end of 2015 with about 70,000 square metres. Hongqiao Tianjie (虹桥天街), about 500 m on foot from both the exhibition centre and the transport hub, was reported in 2016 as due to open in December that year, with about 250,000 square metres of shopping mall inside 430,000 square metres in total. The National Exhibition and Convention Center (国家会展中心) opened in 2015 in Qingpu District. The Hongqiao Imported Goods Display and Trading Center (虹桥进口商品展示交易中心), on Shenkun Road, was built to sell products like those shown at the China International Import Expo.

Officially, the Shanghai Municipal Commerce Commission treats the district as one of eight key business districts and calls it the commercial gateway on the city’s western flank.

Getting around: Hongqiao railway station is on Metro Lines 2, 10 and 17. Lines 2 and 10 continue to the airport terminals, and Lines 2 and 17 stop at the National Exhibition and Convention Center.