Pudong New Area in the context of Nanhui New City

Shanghai is one of the four direct-controlled municipalities of People's Republic of China, and is further divided into 16 districts. Seven of the administrative districts together make up Shanghai's "urban core", and there is no single "city centre" district amongst them, although Huangpu District contains most of the traditional city centre area of Shanghai. Today's Huangpu is the result of the mergers of three old districts: the original Huangpu District merged with Nanshi District in 2000, and in 2011 Luwan District also merged into Huangpu. Huangpu District is now the location of the municipal government headquarters, The Bund (the traditional financial district), and well-known shopping areas including Nanjing Road, Huaihai Road, and Xintiandi. Across the Huangpu River, Pudong includes Lujiazui, the financial center of Shanghai as well as China, and has been undergoing rapid development since its formation in 1992. In April 2009 Nanhui District was merged into Pudong. Other prominent business and shopping areas include Xujiahui in Xuhui District, Jing'an Temple in Jing'an District, Hongqiao in Changning District, Wujiaochang in Yangpu District, and North Sichuan Road in Hongkou District. Many universities in Shanghai are located in Yangpu, Minhang, and Songjiang Districts.

Seven of the districts are situated in Puxi (literally Huangpu West), or the older part of urban Shanghai on the west bank of the Huangpu River. These seven districts are collectively referred to as the "urban area" of Shanghai (上海市区) or the city centre (市中心). Additionally, Pudong New Area (on the east bank of the Huangpu River) is also included within the zone enclosed by the S20 Shanghai Outer Ring Expressway, and so is sometimes considered to be the eighth city centre district.

Donghai Bridge (Chinese: t 東海大橋, s 东海大桥, p Dōnghǎi Dàqiáo, Wu Tonhe Dujiau lit. "East Sea Bridge") is a Chinese bridge counted among the longest cross-sea bridges in the world. It was completed on December 10, 2005. It has a total length of 32.5 kilometres (20.2 mi) and connects mainland Shanghai's Pudong New Area with the offshore Yangshan Deep-Water Port in Zhejiang's Shengsi County. Most of the bridge is a low-level viaduct. There are also cable-stayed sections to allow for the passage of large ships, the largest with a span of 420 metres (1,380 ft). Donghai Bridge is part of the S2 Hulu Expressway.

The bridge has a long and narrow speedway and does not allow vehicles that do not meet the weight requirements.

Yangshan Port (Chinese: 洋山港, p Yángshān Gǎng, Wu Yan-se Kaon), formally the Yangshan Deep-Water Port (洋山深水港, p Yángshān Shēnshuǐ Gǎng, Wu Yan-se Sen-sy Kaon), is an offshore deep-water port for containerization in Hangzhou Bay south of Shanghai, China, built on land reclamation joining the Lesser Yangshan Island with numerous other nearby islands of the northwestern Zhoushan archipelago. It is connected to Shanghai's Pudong New Area on the mainland by the 32.5 km-long (20.2 mi) Donghai Bridge, forming part of the Port of Shanghai, while the other islands of Yangshan archipelago (including the Greater Yangshan Island, where the civilian population of the archipelago live) are administered separately as part of Zhejiang's Shengsi County.

Yangshan Port is part of China's Maritime Silk Road, built to allow the Port of Shanghai to grow despite shallow waters near the shore. Prior to its construction, the Port of Shanghai was predominantly based around the mouth of the Huangpu River, which is too shallow to handle large container ships, forcing the port to often perform mid-stream operations within the Yangtze estuary, which often had to wait for the high tide hours, severely restricting the port's capacity. The construction of Yangshan Port allows berths with depths of up to 15 m (49 ft) to be built, and can handle today's largest container ships. In mid-2011, port officials said the port was on track to move 12.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) during the year, up from 10.1 million TEUs in 2010, overtaking Port of Singapore to become the world's busiest container port. In 2015, the port handled 36.54 million TEUs, and by 2019, its throughput had increased to 43.35 million TEU.

Statistically, China does not have a simple concept of metropolitan areas. In the country's long-term development plan, China's regional economic layout and planning include large areas such as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Economic Rim; smaller areas include the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle, the Wuhan Metropolitan Area, and the Greater Changsha Metropolitan Region. Even smaller areas include the Shanghai Pudong New Area,Tianjin Binhai New Area, Sichuan Tianfu New Area, Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, Hunan Xiangjiang New Area, Shaanxi Xixian New Area, Guangzhou Nansha New Area, and Hebei Xiong'an New Area. This is an industrial layout and national long-term development plan formed after decades of industrialization. However, only administrative divisions above the county level regularly publish social and economic development indicators.

As one of the types of administrative divisions in China, cities includes three categories: municipalities, prefecture-level cities, and county-level cities. In addition, China's two special administrative regions are highly commercialized and densely populated areas in the world. Both the international and Chinese governments classify them as cities. In terms of area, prefecture-level cities and municipalities are comparable, and the population and economic sizes are not much different, belonging to the same order of magnitude. There are no county-level cities in municipalities, which is the biggest difference between municipalities and prefecture-level cities in administrative divisions. Mostly, a China's county-level city has all been reformed and developed from a county as a whole, but the development focus, policies authorized by the central and provincial governments, and authorized development plan are different from that of a county. Based on this, this entry only includes China's prefecture-level cities, municipalities and special administrative regions. If you want to fully understand the economic level of prefecture-level administrative regions, you must refer to list of prefecture-level divisions of China by GDP.

Nanhui District (simplified Chinese: 南汇区; traditional Chinese: 南匯區; pinyin: Nánhuì Qū; lit. 'South-confluence District'), formerly romanized as Nanhwei, was a district of Shanghai until it was merged into Pudong New Area in May 2009. It had a land area of about 809.5 km (312.5 sq mi) and a 59.5 km (37.0 mi) coastline. The population of Nanhui was 975,017 as of August 2006. On May 6, 2009, it was announced that the State Council of China had approved the proposal to merge Nanhui District into Pudong, which is also a district of Shanghai.

Shengsi County is a county in the northeast of Zhejiang province in China consisting of an archipelago of islands located to the east of Hangzhou Bay. It is under the administration of Zhoushan City and is the easternmost county-level division in the province. The islands of Greater and Lesser Yangshan are connected with Shanghai's Pudong New Area by the Donghai Bridge and their port forms part of the Port of Shanghai. They are, however, not counted among the islands of Shanghai.

The county consists of 630 islands and islets, of which 13 have more than 100 inhabitants.

The Shanghai–Luchaogang Expressway, commonly referred to as the Hulu Expressway (Chinese: 沪芦高速公路; pinyin: Hùlú Gāosù Gōnglù) and designated S2, is a 42.31-kilometre-long expressway (26.29 mi) in the city of Shanghai, China. The entire route runs within Pudong New Area in the city of Shanghai, and was originally designated A2.