The Dazhi River — a canal dug by hand

The Dazhi River is not natural. It is a straight canal cut across Pudong in the late 1970s, largely by hand, to drain and irrigate the coastal flats.

That makes it the youngest landscape on this list by a wide margin — and the route along it is about farming, salt, and a district that was countryside within living memory.

It is also the easiest of the ten to reach, because Line 16 runs the length of it.

What the route passes

The Pujia mansion and the Huinan watchtower, the Jiaxiu bridge, the Dazhi River culture hall, and the estuary where the canal meets the sea. Further inland: Tangjia’an, Zhaoqiao village in Datuan and the Xi family house.

And at Laogang, the monument to China’s first experimental sounding rocket — which is exactly the kind of thing you find in coastal Pudong and nowhere else.

Salt, melons and field pattern

The geometry here is not natural either. The zaogang salt pans — rectangular evaporation beds laid out in a grid — still dictate how the fields are divided, centuries after the salt industry left.

This is 8424 watermelon country and Nanhui honey peach country. In season, the roadside is the point of the trip.

Length and pace

The published line is about 40 km; a 37 km, seven-hour version is the one the survey teams walked. Bike it if you want the whole thing — the towpath is flat and almost entirely straight.

Line 16 puts you at Huinan for the inland end and Lingang Avenue for the sea end.

Getting there without a car

Line 16 to Huinan; Line 16 to Lingang Avenue for the estuary end.

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

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