Shanghai: City overview

By Linnie Rawlinson for CNN

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Hot, humid and swept by typhoons, Shanghai is the brightest star on the oriental horizon.

Once a small fishing town, now a skyscraper metropolis, this Chinese economic tiger, crouched by the edge of the East China Sea, grew through the 19th century as a strategic trade port with the West. The Pearl of the Orient's colorful history takes in gangsters, casinos and courtesans against a backdrop of silk and the heady scent of opium.

As a center for revolutionary leftism and economic reform, Shanghai is a beacon of China to come, its space-age skyline heralding the ascendance of the East. But the rich veneer of the city sits atop a sometimes seedy underbelly. Powered by migrant muscle crammed into overcrowded, laundry-strung backstreets, the real Shanghai is fiercely competitive: Darwinian survival of the fittest in motion. As a political powerhouse, Shanghai's key posts are prized as stepping stones to central government, and speculation is rife that corruption fuels much of the city's political deal breaking.

The hub of communication between China and the Western world, the city has absorbed many of its expats' customs and aspirations. Its switched-on international populace is a talking, walking cultural cocktail of east-meets-west. Materialistic, elitist and welded to their cell phones, the Shanghainese are a people who know their time has come.

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