| rdfs:comment
| - The Shanghai area has long been settled, but many think of Shanghai as being founded in 1553, when a wall was built around the area (which is now known as the old quarter). Still, Shanghai was a small city until the mid-1800s. In 1842, Wuyue (the nation later to become known simply as "Yue") decided that to become a modern nation and fend off territorial (including colonial) ambitions of other nations, did what was thought by other oriental nations to be suicide and invited Europeans, Indians, and other major world powers to come to an area just north of Shanghai and develop the area into a modern city. This was in exchange for promises that Wuyue would always have sovereignty over its land, including foreign settlements. This plan worked, and the Europeans (particularly the British and Fr
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| abstract
| - The Shanghai area has long been settled, but many think of Shanghai as being founded in 1553, when a wall was built around the area (which is now known as the old quarter). Still, Shanghai was a small city until the mid-1800s. In 1842, Wuyue (the nation later to become known simply as "Yue") decided that to become a modern nation and fend off territorial (including colonial) ambitions of other nations, did what was thought by other oriental nations to be suicide and invited Europeans, Indians, and other major world powers to come to an area just north of Shanghai and develop the area into a modern city. This was in exchange for promises that Wuyue would always have sovereignty over its land, including foreign settlements. This plan worked, and the Europeans (particularly the British and French) did business in the new northern extension of Shanghai along the river. This area would later become known as "the Bund", and would come to look more like Europe than China. Building continued and Nanjing Road and the French Quarter would become prime areas by 1900. By the early 1900s, Shanghai had become the biggest financial center in the Orient. All of this ended in 1940, when Shanghai fell to the Japanese during the Pan-Global War. By the end of the war, Shanghai's economy was devastated, though its infrastructure was largely intact. However, with the world's economy in ruins, European nations turned inward and did not invest heavily in Shanghai any more. When the Europeans did reinvest, most chose the then British colony of Hong Kong, because they felt that Chinese governments did not afford them as much control as they wanted. However, Taiwan was another nation to be invested in, particularly because it had links to Southeast Asia as well as China, and it wasn't sitting just due south of a new potential war-zone (which never materialized between the communist "People's Republic of Jonggwo" and the capitalist "Republic of China" (now known as "Wu"). This situation did not change until the early 1980s, when the nations of China started to integrate more, eventually forming the Chinese Union. With the Chinese Union created, many foreigners again saw potential in Shanghai, and it has quickly grown to become a major world city again. On top of that, the businesses of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Asian nations also invested in Shanghai. Currently, while the Shanghainese are enjoying a very high standard of living already, Shanghai's economy is still continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Shanghai has again become one of the world's major cities.
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