1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
China
Compare this sourced profile of Shanghai, China before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Shanghai—24,874,500, Asia/Shanghai, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: provincial-level municipality in China.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Shanghai is GeoNames ID 1796236. Its recorded administrative path is Shanghai Municipality → Shanghai → China, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Shanghai occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-13; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Shanghai ranks 1 by recorded population. Inside the 296 selected China entries it ranks 1; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 1. Its 24,874,500 population value is 21.34 times the 1,165,375 median for the country cohort and 24.67 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Shanghai falls inside the leading tenth of this atlas's China population cohort. Shanghai's recorded value reaches at least twice the country-cohort median in this snapshot. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Shanghai's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Huangpu at 2.575 km with 504,700 recorded people; Xuhui at 3.103 km with 1,109,800 recorded people; Changning at 3.56 km with 694,900 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 0.985 km. Compared with Huangpu, Shanghai's recorded population is 49.29 times as large. Against Shanghai, Huangpu follows Shanghai Municipality → Shanghai → China in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Shanghai's. Against Shanghai, Xuhui follows Shanghai Municipality → Shanghai → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries third-order administrative seat rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Shanghai's. Against Shanghai, Changning follows Shanghai Municipality → Shanghai → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries third-order administrative seat rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Shanghai's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 16 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Shanghai's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the tightest tenth of the atlas. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1796236, the coordinate pair 31.2222 / 121.4581, country rank 1 of 296, and neighbor GeoNames 8307452 at 2.575 km bind Shanghai to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Shanghai's reference point is 31.2222° north and 121.4581° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Shanghai is shared by 291 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Shanghai's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Shanghai's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Shanghai's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Shanghai, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Shanghai's closest other entries in this atlas are Huangpu (2.575 km), Xuhui (3.103 km), Changning (3.56 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Shanghai, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-13; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.