Lake and marsh fields
The west, around Dianshan Lake. Low land, dyked fields, and villages that were islands within living memory. Most of Shanghai’s remaining water-village fabric is here.
100 official routes · 2,185 km · published 25 October 2026
Shanghai’s countryside, in English
Shanghai is a city, but the municipality is also farmland, islands, sea walls and twelve hills. The city has just published 100 routes through all of it. Almost none of this exists in English — here is the structure, and the part you can get to without a car.
100
routes published
2,185 km
total, all routes
690
village nodes linked
9
rural districts covered
What this network is
“Hudu” is the oldest recorded name for this place — it comes from the fish traps the first settlers set in the tidal creeks. The routes are named after it, and they are built on a survey of 148 landscape character areas, 196 villages, 522 old bridges, 75 polder field systems and 1.56 million public check-in records.
The point is not that the countryside was pretty. It is that the interesting things out there are scattered, and a line through them turns a set of hard-to-reach dots into a walk. The planning side puts it plainly: you do not need a plan to go to Nanjing Road, but you do need one to go to a village.
Published on 25 October 2026 by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources, as “沪渎100 · 徒步上海”. The complete route guides are released on the organiser’s WeChat account (沪派江南行) and have not been published as open data.
Straight answer
What this is, and what it is not
What this is
- These are the city’s official countryside routes, published on 25 October 2026 by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources. We translated the structure and picked out the parts a visitor can use.
- The ten city-level lines have published names and distances, so each gets a page with what is known about it.
- The transport notes are ours. They are the part nobody else publishes in English, and the part that decides whether a route is possible for you.
What it is not
- These are not ShanghaiWalk routes. We have not walked them. Every route on this site’s own Walks section is walked before publication; nothing on these pages has been.
- We do not have the full list of 100 route names — the complete guide is published on the organiser’s WeChat account and has not been released as open data. Do not trust any site that claims to list all 100.
- Distances are as published. Field paths change: a route verified in September can be cut by construction in November.
How it is built
Ten, thirty, sixty
The network has three levels. The ten city lines are the ones with published names and distances, and the only ones with a page of their own here.
10
City lines
50–100 km
Cross several districts and follow one big idea — a river, a coastline, a ridge. These are the ten given detailed pages on this site, because they are the ten with published names and distances.
30
District lines
10–50 km
Stay inside one district and tell its own story. Most need a bike or a car to finish in a day; all of them work as a walkable section.
60
Town lines
5–10 km
Built for a half day. Flat, short, and the ones most likely to have a bus stop at the start. This is where a visitor without a car should begin.
The six countrysides
Shanghai has six kinds of countryside
This is the part almost nobody writes about in English. The municipality is not one landscape — the survey divides it into six, and the routes are organised around them.
River-mouth sandbars
Chongming, Changxing and Hengsha. Land that did not exist a few centuries ago. The routes here are the emptiest and the most exposed to wind.
Coastal embankments
The south and east edge. Successive sea walls, each one marking where the coast used to be, with salt-pan geometry still visible in the field pattern.
Nine peaks and three lakes
Songjiang, and the only place in the municipality with hills. Twelve of them, none above 100 m — but they are the reason Shanghai’s oldest settlement is here, not downtown.
Winding creeks
Jiading and the north-west. Dense, short watercourses and a field pattern that follows them. Flat, quiet, close to the city.
Low-lying creek land
The lowest ground, threaded with drainage channels. Orchard and market-garden country — the shortest, gentlest routes in the network tend to sit here.
Getting out there
Nine districts, and how to reach each one
Route counts are as published. Where a district figure has not been released, we say so rather than guess. The transport column is the part that decides whether a route is possible for you.
Qingpu青浦
14Routes
Line 17 to Dianshan Lake Avenue / Zhujiajiao / Oriental Land
The densest part of the network, and the one most worth a day. Also the district next to Hongqiao.
Jinshan金山
14Routes
Jinshan rail line, Shanghai South → Jinshanwei, about 32 min
Furthest from the centre by metro, fastest by the dedicated rail line.
Pudong浦东
12Routes
Line 16 to Huinan / Lingang Avenue / Dishui Lake
Canal country, salt-field geometry, and the rocket monument.
Fengxian奉贤
12Routes
Line 5 to Fengxian Xincheng
Sea-wall country. Flat, windy, empty.
Chongming崇明
12Routes
Line 6 to Wuzhou Avenue, then Shen-Chong coach; or ferry from Baoyang Road
An island. Budget the whole day for the crossing alone.
Songjiang松江
—not published separately
Line 9 to Sheshan / Dongjing / Zuibaichi
Hills, the leaning pagoda, and the oldest settled place in Shanghai.
Jiading嘉定
—not published separately
Line 11 to Jiading North / Jiading West / Anting
Creek country and the old port of Qinglong.
Baoshan宝山
—not published separately
Line 3 to Songbin Road / Shuichan Road
The easiest of the nine to reach — one metro line, no transfers.
Minhang闵行
—not published separately
Lines 5 / 8 / 10
The closest rural fabric to the city centre, and the most built-over.
Counts are the published figures: Qingpu and Jinshan 14 each, Pudong, Fengxian and Chongming 12 each. The remaining 36 are spread across Songjiang, Jiading, Baoshan and Minhang — the per-district split has not been released.
The ten city lines
The ten, one page each
These are the ten with published names and distances. Each page says what the line is, what is on it, and — the part nobody else publishes in English — how to get to it without a car.
Crosses districts · 75 km
Crossing the Gangshan Ridge — 6,000 years in 75 km
The oldest line in Shanghai is not a road. It is a ridge of shell and sand the sea left behind, and walking along it crosses every culture that made this city.
Qingpu · 50 km
Tracing the Huangpu to its source — where the river starts
Shanghai’s river begins in a rice field in Qingpu, at the point where two creeks meet. Nobody goes there. It is one of the best day trips in the network.
Crosses districts · 40 km
Following the Wusong River — the port that came first
There was a port here a thousand years before Shanghai existed. Walk the river that made it, past the pagoda that watched it silt up.
Pudong · 40 km
The Dazhi River — a canal dug by hand
Forty kilometres of canal dug largely by hand in the 1970s, a rocket monument, salt-field geometry, and the best watermelons in the Yangtze delta.
Crosses districts · 70 km
South of the Huangpu — ferries, dikes and the last villages
The western end of Shanghai is mostly water. Sixty-odd lakes, an old ferry network, and the last villages before Jiangsu.
Baoshan · 50 km
Where the river meets the sea — the Wusong mouth
The only one of the ten you can reach on a single metro line with no transfers. Where the Huangpu runs into the Yangtze, on ground that was fought over twice.
Crosses districts · 85 km
The old sea walls — reading Shanghai like tree rings
Shanghai is made of silt. The abandoned sea walls inland are growth rings — walk them east to west and you walk a thousand years of land being made.
Chongming · 100 km
Chongming — the island loop
A hundred kilometres of reclaimed land, diked fields and migratory birds. The only place in Shanghai municipality where the horizon is empty in every direction.
Chongming · 55 km
Changxing and Hengsha — the new sandbars
Two sandbars in the Yangtze that became islands. Shipyards on one, almost nothing on the other.
Songjiang · 40 km
The nine peaks and three lakes — Shanghai has mountains
Twelve hills, none above 100 metres, and a pagoda that has been leaning since 1079. This is the oldest settled ground in Shanghai.
Can’t decide
Pick one for me
Three answers and we will name a route. It matches against the real data — no random, so you get the same answer next time.
Find a line
All the routes we can name
The ten with published names and distances have a page each. The rest are the district and town lines that have been named in the published material. Filter, tick off the ones you have walked, and the page remembers.
Your passport
Tick off what you have walked
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Not started yet
Tick a route and this page remembers it — nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on our side. It stays in this browser, so the page is worth coming back to.
Badges here are ours, for fun. The official badge challenge is run by the publishing side — see below.
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Crossing the Gangshan Ridge — 6,000 years in 75 km
穿越冈身线 6000年文明之旅
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The Dazhi River — a canal dug by hand
大治河开拓奋斗之旅
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崇明生态循江之旅
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Qingxi pearl chain — autumn path
青西珠链秋径
Flat throughout. 7 hours walking, 2.5 by bike. Passes Dianfeng village, the Grand View Garden, Qingxi country park, Yuandang lake, Shanshen village and the Jinze reservoir.
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Dianshan Lake to Zhujiajiao water towns
淀山湖—朱家角水乡线
The most visited corner of the network. Gets busy at weekends; go on a weekday.
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Tianma riding trail
天马云骑驿道
About 12 km by bike, half a day including stops. Tianma hill, the radio telescope, Little Kunshan.
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Songjiang new-town green ring
松江新城绿环
From the Zhangpu bridge church through the Baihuagang open woodland. Almost no climbing.
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Tianma new-town green ring
天马新城绿环
The Songjiang pair of green rings, on the hill side rather than the town side.
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Star-chasing at the foot of the hills
山麓追星
Tianma hill and the radio telescope. Named for the observatory, not for actual stargazing.
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Songjiang nine peaks trace
松江九峰迹线
The district-level version of the peaks route, staying inside Songjiang.
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Elk secret-realm trail
麋鹿秘境探索之旅
Passes the Guangming farmland. One of the routes an international design team worked on.
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Peach spring, water flowing east
桃源水韵东流之旅
Coastal-embankment lowland. Orchard country; best in late spring.
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Jiading, along the Lianqi creek
嘉定练祁河线
Orchard picking, pottery, the Jiabei country park and the egret wetland. The best family route in the network.
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Xidu and Beixin village, Fengxian
奉贤西渡北新村线
About 10 km, three and a half hours, graded easy. Rice fields, a ginkgo wood, a 600-mu conservation forest and the first bend of the Huangpu.
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Chongming island circuit path
崇明环岛郊野径
The district-level version of the island loop. Needs a bike and a ferry.
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Baoshan Wusong river-and-sea heritage line
宝山吴淞江海文脉线
The district version of the Wusong mouth route. Best transport access of any route here.
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Yunzao flower-seeking line
蕰藻寻花线
Short, flat, in Baoshan. The kind of route the 60 town-level lines are built for.
Nothing matches that combination. Clear a filter and try again.
Distances are as published. A route verified in September can be cut by construction in November — check before you set off, and carry water.
The official badge challenge
The badge challenge
The network comes with a stamp challenge. Walk a route, submit your track and a photo, and you are sent a badge from the blind-box series. There are twelve, one for each of the twelve rural landscape characters, and collected together they form the outline of Shanghai.
It runs through the same WeChat account that publishes the full route guides. If you read Chinese, that is where the detail lives.
We are not the organiser and cannot submit on your behalf. Everything about the challenge is run by the publishing side.
Help us walk them
Been out there? Tell us what you found
We have not walked these routes, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. If you do one, a short note is worth more than any amount of research: where the path was cut, which bus actually turned up, whether the toilets were open, what was worth the trip. It goes straight into the next revision of this page.
FAQ
Questions about the countryside routes
Everything on this site is written and re-checked on the ground. When something changes, this page changes.
Are these ShanghaiWalk routes?
No. These are the city’s official countryside routes, published on 25 October 2026. We have not walked them. Every route under Walks on this site is walked before publication; nothing in this section has been. What we have added is the English structure and the transport notes.
Can you give me all 100 route names?
No, and we would not trust anyone who does. The complete guides are released through the organiser’s WeChat account and have not been published as open data. What we list is what has been named in published reporting.
Which one should I do if I only have a morning?
The Wusong mouth line in Baoshan. It is the only one of the ten you can reach on a single metro line with no transfers, and there is a four-kilometre stretch that does the whole thing.
Do I need a car?
For most of the network, yes — or a bike. The exceptions are the Wusong mouth line and the Songjiang peaks line, both of which a single metro line serves. The sixty town-level lines are the ones designed to work by public transport.
Is any of it signposted in English?
Assume not. This is a network built for residents; wayfinding is in Chinese and much of it is on field paths. Download the route before you go, and carry the place names in Chinese to show someone.
When is the best time of year?
October and November, which is why the first hundred were published as autumn routes. Summer is hot and the field paths are exposed; after heavy rain, low-lying sections are genuinely wet.
Why is it called Hudu?
“Hu” comes from the fish traps the earliest settlers set in the tidal creeks, and “Hudu” is the oldest name for this area to appear in the historical record. The routes are named after it deliberately.
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