1. The Name: Two Water Gates on Suzhou Creek
The conclusion first
The name "Zhabei" has nothing to do with politics, or culture, or any great man. It is very plain:
There are two water gates on Suzhou Creek. North of the gates is "Zhabei".
As simple as that. This is the first key to understanding Zhabei: there is no grand narrative in its name, only a geographical direction.
Suzhou Creek is really the Wusong River
Shanghai people call it "Suzhou Creek" today, but the river's proper name is the Wusong River. It was an important channel draining Lake Taihu to the sea, and it was the most important inland waterway in Shanghai before the port opened.
In earlier centuries the Wusong River flooded often: tidal water backed up, silt accumulated, and the riverbed rose year by year. The remedy was direct: build gates.
- In 1675, the fourteenth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing, a water gate was built on the Wusong River near what is today Fujian Road Bridge. Because a new gate was later built downstream, this one came to be called the Old Gate.
- In 1735, the thirteenth year of the Yongzheng reign, another gate was built about three li west of the Old Gate, at Jinjiawan (near today's Xinzha Road Bridge), and was called the New Gate.
Both gates served to block the tide, store water and keep navigation open. But what really changed this land was the flow of people and goods they brought.
Two gates, two markets
By the Jiaqing reign, traffic on the Wusong River was busy and trade brisk, and a market had grown up around each gate:
- The New Gate market was the liveliest in the area. It was the main mooring place for shipping on the lower Wusong River, with boatwrights' yards, ironworks and every kind of shop; the trade there was thriving.
- The broad area north of the gates — later the core of Zhabei District — was still mostly fields and marsh at the time.
This is a crucial contrast: the bustle was by the water; the desolation was in Zhabei. Zhabei begins as "waste ground on the far bank of the river".
How the word "Zhabei" grew
Accounts differ slightly on when the name "Zhabei" came into use, but the sequence is clear:
- Under Kangxi and Yongzheng the two gates are built — the geographical premise appears;
- Under Jiaqing markets form around the two gates — people gather;
- After Shanghai opens as a port in 1843, the concessions expand northward and the area north of the Old and New Gates begins to develop; the name "Zhabei" begins to appear;
- In 1927 the name "Zhabei District" appears in administrative arrangements; in 1928 Zhabei District is formally established.
In other words, getting from "north of the two gates", a description of position, to a formal administrative name, took more than two hundred years.
An interesting comparison: Jing'an and Zhabei
Shanghai people like to mention Jing'an and Zhabei in the same breath — the two districts face each other across Suzhou Creek, and in 2015 they merged. The scholar of Shanghai culture Huang Yuan once drew a vivid comparison (in the Jing'an volume of the Shanghai Culture Map series, Shanghai Blues):
| Jing'an | Zhabei | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of the name | A temple (Jing'an Temple) | Water works (a sluice gate) |
| "Date of birth" | Nearly 800 years | Under 400 years |
| Temperament (Huang Yuan) | "westernised" | "uncompromising" |
One takes its name from a temple, the other from a gate; one is the elegance of the concession, the other the hardness of the Chinese-administered city. Huang Yuan says the two districts are "of one lineage in their inner make-up and spirit" — a remark worth remembering, because it will be borne out again and again as you read on.
Zhabei's water is more than one Suzhou Creek
A side note: Zhabei was never just Suzhou Creek. Before it was abolished, the district contained twelve watercourses, among them:
- Suzhou Creek, 4,567 metres of it within the district;
- six trunk watercourses: Yujingpu, Xisitang, Dongjiaojing, Pengyuepu, Zoumatang, Xiachangpu;
- five ordinary watercourses: Xujiazhai River, Zhongyang Lake, Xianfeng River, Jiangchang River, Mayibang;
- one lake: Daning Lake, with 68,000 m² of water.
Of these, Pengyuepu matters: it gives rise to the place name "Pengpu", and to a legend about Peng Yue, King of Liang in the Western Han — see Part Two · Pengpu Town.
In short
- "Zhabei" takes its name from the Old Gate (1675) and the New Gate (1735) on Suzhou Creek (the Wusong River), and means the area north of the two.
- In Ming and Qing times the core of Zhabei was still fields and marsh; the bustle was confined to small markets around the two gates.
- The fixing of the name, and urbanisation itself, both had to wait until after Shanghai opened as a port — which is the next chapter.
Sources: this section rests mainly on the general introduction to the Gazetteer of Zhabei District (compiled by the Zhabei District Gazetteer Committee; Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1st edition, March 1998) and on public statements by the Shanghai municipal government and authoritative media about the district's administrative history; the comparison of the temperaments of Jing'an and Zhabei is taken from a People's Daily client report on a reading event for the Shanghai Culture Map series. The full bibliography is in Appendix 4.