Cui.688
Mingyue Cui
Professor Jordan Ferguson
10/27/2022
The differences between Beijing and Shanghai
With the development of technology and economy, Beijing and Shanghai have become two of the
largest global cities in the world. Speaking of these two cities, they have a lot in common. For example,
billions of Chinese people live in these two beautiful cities, which Beijing has a population of 18,590,000
and makes it the second largest city in the world. On the other hand, Shang accommodates 24,153,000
people in 2018, which makes it the largest city in the world. Hence, these two cities both have well
developed and modern public transportation system. For instance, the metro system of Shanghai is the
longest in the world, and Beijing’s metro system for the second place. Also, there are tons of
tremendous shopping centers in both cities that include countless of brands. There are luxury brands
such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada, which are the favorites of Chinese rich people. Simultaneously,
there are brands like Nike, Muji, Puma that from all around the world, and with a lot of Chinese local
brands. The examples display that Beijing and Shanghai are both mega cities that are fully globalized and
modernized city. However, there are three major differences between these two cities. They are the
history differences, regional culture differences, and the life style differences of people. I will introduce
the details in the following paragraphs.
First of all, the history of these two cities is quite different. The history of Shanghai stretches for a
thousand of years and its development is also a development of Chinese modern history (History of
Shanghai 2022). It started only as a small village in the ancient China and had little historical records.
Things began to change in 1074, the Sony Dynasty’s emperor established a Marine Office and a Goods
Control Bureau at the approximate location of Shanghai's old city (History of Shanghai 2022). After that,
Shanghai gradually developed into one of China's major trading ports in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).
For example, the World Expo was held in Shanghai in 2010 and attracted more than 7.3 million of
visitors with over 190 countries attended the Expo. Compared to Shanghai, Beijing has a relatively long
history that can be traced from 3000 years ago even before the first unification of China in Qin Dynasty
in 221BC. At the early age, Beijing was served as a provincial center which was close to the northern
boundary of ancient China. Hence, along the history there were many invasions from the north and
