North Sichuan Road Commercial District

North Sichuan Road (四川北路, Sìchuān Běilù) is a long north-south shopping street in Hongkou District, and the heart of one of Shanghai’s city-level commercial centres. It is an older, plainer alternative to East Nanjing Road: worth a walk for its history and its link to Lu Xun and Shanghai’s left-wing writers, less so for a polished shopping trip.

The road dates from about 1870, when the International Settlement’s volunteer corps had a rifle range north of Suzhou Creek and a road was built from the new bridge to reach it. As an extension of Sichuan Road, it became 北四川路 (North Sichuan Road). English Wikipedia dates the paving to 1877 instead. In 1895 the range moved to land bought from Baoshan County and the road was extended into Shanghai County. Because the Settlement stopped expanding in 1899, that new section stayed a road built beyond its boundary (越界筑路). The road took its present name in 1946.

In the 1920s the street grew into Shanghai’s third-largest shopping street, after Nanjing Road and Huaihai Road. Lu Xun, Mao Dun and the League of Left-Wing Writers were active around here and nearby Duolun Road, and cinemas and theatres clustered along the road. Fighting in 1937 sent most residents away.

Today the 2022-2035 commercial-space plan lists the North Sichuan Road commercial centre as one of 29 city-level centres, covering about 0.9 square kilometres with about 500,000 square metres of planned commercial floor space. The same plan’s review admits that the centre’s pulling power is weak compared with the other city-level centres. Its stated aim is to move from a single shopping street towards an urban commercial district, with links to Hongkou Football Stadium, Music Valley and Rui Hong Tiandi.

Reference works list the General Post Office Building and Lu Xun Park as nearby, so the street combines easily with a visit to either. Sources give the road’s length as 3.3 km or 3.7 km.