Crossing the Gangshan Ridge — 6,000 years in 75 km

Six thousand years ago the sea stopped here. It left a low ridge of shell and sand — the gangshan — running roughly north to south through what is now outer Shanghai. West of it is old ground. East of it is ground the river and the sea made later.

The ridge became the boundary of the Neolithic coastline, and then it became a road, because it was the only dry, slightly raised ground in a marsh. Every culture that settled this delta settled along it.

This route follows the ridge and stops at 26 excavation sites on the way. It is the single most historically concentrated walk in the network, and the reason it is the flagship of the ten.

What you are actually walking on

A gangshan is a shell ridge: storm beaches of shell and coarse sand thrown up along an old shoreline, then buried under silt as the coast moved east. There are several parallel ones — the outer, middle and inner ridges — and the route crosses between them deliberately.

You will not see a ridge. It reads as slightly higher, slightly drier ground with villages strung along it in a line that looks arbitrary until you know why.

The six cultures on the way

Majiabang, about 6,000 years before present. Songze, about 5,500. Liangzhu, about 5,000. Qianshanyang, about 4,300. Guangfulin, about 4,200. Maqiao, about 3,700.

Named sites along or near the line include the Ma’anshan site, Fuquanshan, the Songze site itself, the Qinglong town site, Guangfulin, Maqiao, Puxiu village and the Caojing gangshan site.

Guangfulin is the one to plan around if you only do one: it is excavated, presented, and reachable on Line 9.

The four sections

The line is broken into four named stretches: Jiumen Wenshui (asking the water at the nine gates), Songze Tanyuan (seeking the source at Songze), Yunjian Xuntian (looking for fields in Yunjian) and Gutang Wanghai (watching the sea from the old embankment).

Read in that order, the route runs from the coast inward — which is the opposite of how Shanghai is usually told.

Doing it without a car

Do not attempt the whole 75 km on foot. The full line was verified by a survey team riding and walking 150 km in a single day in September 2026; that is a different kind of day out.

Pick a section and metro to it. Guangfulin on Line 9 and the Songze site on the Line 17 side are the two that work best as half-day trips, and both have something above ground to look at.

Getting there without a car

Line 9 to Sheshan or Dongjing; Line 17 for Songze; Line 5 for Maqiao.

The honest part

This is one of the city’s official countryside routes, not a ShanghaiWalk route. Distances are as published.

✓ Tick off what you have walked

All countryside routes →