Middle Huaihai Road Shopping District

Middle Huaihai Road (淮海中路, Huáihǎi Zhōnglù) is the shopping street through the former French Concession, the stretch most visitors mean when they say Huaihai Road. Shanghai’s 2022–2035 commercial plan names it one of the city’s 29 city-level commercial centres, about 1.2 km² with some 750,000 m² of planned shop and mall floor space. It is also one of the centres the plan groups into an ‘east international consumption cluster’ around the Bund and Lujiazui. It is a place for malls, brand stores and a walk past older buildings, set apart from the Bund-side crowds of East Nanjing Road.

The road was built across the French Concession from 1900 (English Wikipedia says 1901). It was renamed 宝昌路 in 1906 and became 霞飞路 (Avenue Joffre) in June 1915, after the French marshal. A tram line ran along it from 1908. From the 1920s many Russian emigre shops opened here. The road was renamed twice in the 1940s, then took its present name on 25 May 1950, after the Huaihai Campaign.

The shopping district took its modern form in the 1990s. In 1993 the road was renovated while Metro Line 1 was built beneath it, and high-end stores were added. Many luxury brands opened in 2010, around the Expo year. Today the road has K11, IAPM, Hong Kong Plaza and Lippo Plaza, and Xintiandi is close by. Older buildings remain among them, including the Cathay Theatre.

Metro Line 1 runs under the road, with South Huangpi Road, South Shaanxi Road and Changshu Road stations. Line 13 has a Middle Huaihai Road station.