The islands of Shanghai are those under the jurisdiction of the Shanghai municipal government. They comprise three large inhabited islands and a shifting number of smaller, uninhabited ones. Most are

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. ...

islands in the

Yangtze River Delta The Yangtze Delta or Yangtze River Delta (YRD, or simply ) is a triangle-shaped megalopolis generally comprising the Wu Chinese-speaking areas of Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. The area lies in the heart of the Jiangnan re ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, although a number of islands in Hangzhou Bay off Jinshan District are also administered by Shanghai. The alluvial islands are relatively young and their number varies over time. In 2006, the city's 19 uninhabited islands covered , with a total coastline length of . The Yangshan area of the

Port of Shanghai The Port of Shanghai (), located in the vicinity of Shanghai, comprises a deep-sea port and a river port. The main port enterprise in Shanghai, the Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG), was established during the reconstitution of the S ...

is also located on two islands, Greater and

Lesser Yangshan Lesser, from Eliezer (, "Help/Court of my God"), is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Adolf Lesser (1851–1926), German physician * Aleksander Lesser (1814–1884), Polish painter and art critic * Anton Lesser (born 1952), Bri ...

in Hangzhou Bay, but these are administered as part of

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...

Shengsi County Shengsi County is a county in the northeast of Zhejiang province consisting of an archipelago 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 provin ...

Chongming County

All three inhabited islands of Shanghai are alluvial islands in the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

estuary between the Municipality of Shanghai and

Jiangsu Province Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its c ...

. They are administered as

Chongming County Chongming District () is northernmost district of the provincial-level municipality of Shanghai. Chongming consists of three low-lying inhabited alluvial islands at the mouth of the Yangtze north of the Shanghai peninsula: Chongming, Changxi ...

, with its

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair, a chair ...

at Chengqiao on Chongming Island. The county was added to Shanghai from Jiangsu in 1958 and remains mostly rural: In 2008, its registered population of included farmers.

Chongming Island Chongming, formerly known as Chungming, is an alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangtze River in eastern China covering as of 2010. Together with the islands Changxing and Hengsha, it forms Chongming District, the northernmost area of the ...

() ("Chongming County" in the ''Encyclopedia of Shanghai'', pp. 50 ff.
Shanghai Scientific & Technical Publishers (Shanghai), 2010. Hosted by the Municipality of Shanghai.) is now the second-largest island of mainland China (after

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

). The natural expansion of the island has been greatly accelerated by reclamation projects, which doubled its size between 1950 and 2010. This growth caused it to absorb the former island of

Yonglongsha Yonglongsha, sometimes translated as the Yonglong Shoal or Yonglong Sands, was a former island in the north channel of the Yangtze River above Chongming in eastern China. It was also known as Yongfengsha and Hefengsha.Office of Shanghai Chronicl ...

, creating a long pene-exclave of

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...

on its northern shore administered as the

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, ...

s of Haiyong and Qilong. The island was connected to Changxing by the Yangtze Bridge in 2009 and to Qidong in Jiangsu by the Chongqi Bridge in 2011. The Chonghai Bridge, to

Haimen Haimen (, Qihai dialect: , Shanghai: ) is a district of Nantong, Jiangsu province, with a population of approximately 1 million. It is located at the opposite side of the Yangtze River to Shanghai and is directly north of Chongming Island except f ...

in Jiangsu, remains under constructionMajor Construction Completed on Chongqi Bridge
. ''

People's Daily The ''People's Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language ...

''. 21 Sept 2011. Accessed 19 Oct 2011. and plans for Shanghai's S7 (Huchong) Expressway call for the creation of a bridge directly from Baoshan District to Chengqiao. Changxing Island () (Shanghai Statistical Bureau Yearbook 2007
/ref>) lies between Chongming and Shanghai in the southern channel of the Yangtze opposite the mouth of the Huangpu, the major river of central Shanghai. It is connected to Chongming by the Yangtze Bridge and Shanghai's Pudong New Area by the Yangtze Tunnel. Hengsha Island () () lies to Changxing's east and is connected with the mainland and other islands by ferry service.

Pudong New Area

Jiuduansha Jiuduansha is a collection of four intertidal wetland shoals at the mouth of China's Yangtze River. They are administered as an island region of the municipality of Shanghai's Pudong New Area. These shoals and the submerged land surrounding t ...

is an intertidal wetland. The area above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...

comprises four major

shoal In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...

s: Upper, Middle, Lower, and South Jiuduansha. These shoals and the waters surrounding them to a depth of (occupying an additional ) form the Jiuduansha Wetland Nature Reserve, a nationally-protected area of Shanghai. The shoals began forming during the Yangtze floods of the late 1940s and early 1950s,Overview
". The Shanghai Jiuduansha Wetland Nature Reserve (Shanghai), 2014. but were developed and protected as a replacement for the wetlands of eastern

Pudong Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name ''Pudong'' was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic city ...

during the construction of Shanghai's

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer r ...

in the 1990s. The cordgrass introduced in 1995 has succeeded in stabilizing the shoals but is now considered to be highly invasive, displacing the native reeds and bullrushesPratolongo, Paula & al
"Temperate Coastal Wetlands: Morphology, Sediment Processes, and Plant Communities" in ''Coastal Wetlands: An Integrated Ecosystem Approach'', p. 105.
Elsevier (Amsterdam), 2009.Scott, David B
''Coastal Wetlands of the World: Geology, Ecology, Distribution, and Applications'', pp. 229 f.
Cambridge University Press (

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

), 2014. and degrading parts of the wetlands."Fourth Island Wetland Emerging", pp. 1–2.
'' Shanghai Daily''. 8 Dec 2009. Hosted at China.org. A wetland museum, as well as a Science Popularization Park on about of the island, are planned to increase public awareness and support.

Jinshan District

Dajinshan Island ( t , s , p ''Dàjīnshān Dǎo'', "Greater Gold Mountain Island"), Xiaojinshan Island ("Lesser Gold Mountain Island"), and Fushan Island in Jinshan District are nature reserves under city jurisdiction.''China Daily''
/ref> They are located in Hangzhou Bay. Dajinshan has the highest point in Shanghai with an elevation of .

References

External links

"Islands and Shoals of Shanghai"
at the Office of Shanghai Chronicles {{DEFAULTSORT:Islands Shanghai Yangtze River Delta

Chongming County

Pudong New Area

Jinshan District

See also

References

External links