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Shanghai Bund (Wai Tan)

Shanghai Bund (Wai Tan)

The Bund or Waitan is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas. From the 1860s to the 1930s, it was the rich and powerful center of the foreign establishment in Shanghai, operating as a legally protected treaty port.

The term "bund" was borrowed into English from Hindi and originally referred to a dyke or embankment. Within the Chinese treaty ports, it was applied specifically to an embanked quay which ran along the shore. The Chinese name for the Bund is unrelated in origin: it literally means "outer bank", and distinguishes this part of the riverfront from the "inner bank" adjacent to the old city of Shanghai.

The Bund houses 52 buildings of various architectural styles, generally Eclecticist, but with some buildings displaying predominantly Romanesque Revival, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Baroque Revival, Neo-Classical or Beaux-Arts styles, and a number in Art Deco style (Shanghai has one of the richest collections of Art Deco architectures in the world).

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