Appendix 1 · Historical Codes in Street Names

Why this deserves an appendix of its own

Zhabei's street names are the most concentrated "readable modern history" in Shanghai.

The reason is simple: between 1900 and 1927 Zhabei went through three rounds of large-scale road building, and each round happened to coincide with a political moment:

So walking a circuit of Zhabei today is like treading on three rounds of political declarations.

One: the first round, the Engineering Bureau period (1900–1911)

By 1917 the roads of Zhabei recorded in the Sequel to the Gazetteer of Baoshan County numbered 27.

Two: the second round, five races in one republic (1912–1913)

This is the most "political" group among Zhabei's street names.

After the Republic of China was founded it adopted the five-coloured flag of red, yellow, blue, white and black, symbolising the five races in one republic — Han, Mongol, Hui, Manchu and Tibetan. The Zhabei Municipal Office therefore named the newly built roads:

One road for each nationality. This is rare in the whole history of Chinese urban naming.

And one road that was "renamed":

Three: "the Republic" and "the Restoration": commemorative renamings

After the 1911 Revolution the Zhabei Municipal Office made major changes to the old street names:

The origin of Gonghexin Road:

From 1920 on, built stretch by stretch from south to north, named because it linked up with Gonghe Road and was newly built.

Four: the third round, reviving China (early Republic)

National capital developed rapidly and clustered rather heavily in Zhabei, and "to express the wish to revive China and see the nation flourish", the newly opened roads were named:

• Zhongxing Road, Yongxing Road, Zhonghua New Road, Hongxing Road
• Huasheng Road, Huachang Road, Minli Road, Minde Road

Read the names together and you have an early-Republican newspaper editorial.

Five: roads named after factories

Some roads were built at the expense of enterprises, and so their names followed the enterprises:

Six: road names commemorating the war of resistance

This is the weightiest group in this book.

Seven: the series of other-province place names

Zhabei has two groups of roads named after other provinces' place names, and both have "been promoted" into the names of sub-districts:

Eight: other road names worth mentioning

Nine: the name "Jielu" ("Boundary Road")

Tianmu East Road deserves mention on its own, because its original name was almost too plain:

Jielu (today's Tianmu East Road) — from the second year of the Tongzhi reign to the nineteenth year of the Guangxu reign, 0.73 km² in the south-eastern corner of the district was successively drawn into the American concession (later merged into the International Settlement), with its northern limit at Jielu (today's Tianmu East Road).

A road whose name simply means "boundary". This is the plainest place name in Zhabei's history, and the plainest passage of its history too.

In summary: a method for "reading street names"

Next time you walk in Zhabei (the north of today's Jing'an), you can look at the street signs by asking four questions:

1. What was it called before? (→ a round of political change may lie hidden there)
2. Is it part of the "five races in one republic" series? (Han, Mongol, Hui, Manchu, Tibet, Xinjiang, Xizang)
3. Is it another province's place name? (Daning, Linfen, Tianmu, Xinjiang…)
4. Which war is it connected with? (Jinyuan, Zhijiang, Pingxingguan, January 28)

Ask all four questions and the history of a road comes out.

Sources: this appendix follows the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau's "The 1911 Revolution and Shanghai's Street Names"; "Shanghai Suhe Bay"'s "Exploring the 'Secrets' in the Street Names of Suhe Bay" and "Row, Row: the Cradle of National Industry, Suhe Bay"; articles on the China Cultural Relics website; place-name research material relating to "Tracing Shanghai in Maps" by the Shanghai Municipal Transport Commission; and the Boya Place-Name Directory's "The Origin of the Place Names of the Towns and Sub-districts of Jing'an District". The full bibliography is in Appendix 4.