Shanghai · China

Expats in Pudong, French Concession, and central districts enjoy high walkability with supermarkets, cafes, banks, and pharmacies within 10-15 minutes in dense mixed-use zones supported by continuous sidewalks, bike lanes, and pedestrian signals. Excellent infrastructure across most residential areas allows car-optional living for routine errands, fostering a vibrant, healthy lifestyle. Summer heat and humidity slightly limit peak comfort, but shaded paths and air-conditioned shops mitigate this for enjoyable long-term walking.

Shanghai's vast metro network combined with buses and maglev offers high-frequency rides every few minutes to expat hubs and neighborhoods, with long hours and digital ticketing simplifying car-free routines for errands and socializing. Strong coverage and punctuality in populated areas allow reliable daily use, though peak crowds can challenge comfort. Long-term residents thrive without vehicles, enjoying efficient access that supports an active urban lifestyle across much of the city.

Typical door-to-door car trips in Shanghai for commuting or healthcare exceed 40 minutes due to gridlock and elevated highways, with low reliability from rush-hour surges wasting hours weekly. Finding parking remains frictional amid urban density, heightening driving stress on complex interchanges. Long-term newcomers experience eroded quality of life from this inefficiency, often shifting to alternatives to reclaim personal time.

Shanghai has strict limits on petrol motorcycle access in central districts and a focus on e-bikes and public transit, so motorbikes are not a mainstream daily transport option for residents. Rental access for foreigners and legal riding on main urban arteries is limited, so relying on a motorbike for everyday commuting is impractical.

Patchy painted lanes in Shanghai provide some bikeability in central areas but disappear at major junctions, requiring risk tolerance for citywide travel that expats may find daunting. Protected segments exist sporadically, allowing cautious errands but not seamless commuting across sprawling districts. For long-term living, cycling supplements but rarely replaces metro use, with safety concerns tempering enthusiasm.

Shanghai has two major international airports: Pudong International Airport (approximately 30 km east) and Hongqiao International Airport (approximately 13 km west). Typical drive times from city center to Hongqiao average 40-65 minutes during weekday traffic, while Pudong typically requires 50-75 minutes. Traffic congestion on arterial roads and expressways creates substantial variability. The drive is long enough to be inconvenient for frequent travelers.

Shanghai Pudong International Airport connects to approximately 90-110 direct international destinations spanning Europe, Asia, North America, and the Middle East through China Eastern, Air China, China Southern, and international partners. Strong daily frequencies link to major global cities (London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Dubai), providing solid long-haul options. Expats have good access to primary business and family destinations directly, though secondary intercontinental routes may require one connection through Beijing or Shanghai's domestic hub.

Shanghai provides good low-cost service from multiple carriers like Spring Airlines, with consistent regional routes offering decent flexibility for affordable domestic and nearby international travel. Expats can plan regular trips to key Asian spots without excessive costs, enhancing weekend escapes and family visits. Long-term, this supports a balanced lifestyle with manageable mobility expenses, though international options remain somewhat constrained.

Shanghai offers major institutions including the Shanghai Museum with comprehensive Chinese art and design collections, the Power Station of Art focused on contemporary work, and extensive gallery districts in M50 and West Bund. The city hosts regular international biennales and exhibitions, positioning it as a leading contemporary art hub, though with less historical breadth than Europe's largest capitals.

Shanghai features several regional history museums including the Shanghai Museum with Chinese art and antiquities collections, the Shanghai History Museum, and heritage sites documenting the city's colonial and modern past. While these institutions are well-maintained with professional curation, they focus primarily on local and Chinese history without the breadth of international collections or diverse historical narratives found in world-class museum ecosystems.

Shanghai has several well‑known heritage assets — the Bund's array of colonial‑era buildings, the walled Old City and Yu Garden, and the conserved French Concession streetscape — and active municipal preservation efforts. These are widely recognised domestically and regionally but do not amount to multiple UNESCO city listings, placing Shanghai in the mid band.

Shanghai maintains an active, cosmopolitan performing arts scene with multiple major theatres hosting drama, ballet, opera, musicals, and international touring productions regularly throughout the year. Expats benefit from consistent access to diverse genres, world-class venues, and both Chinese traditional and contemporary Western performing arts programming.

As a major film hub, Shanghai delivers expats an exceptional cinema ecosystem with abundant premium venues, strong independent scenes, and frequent original-language screenings plus multiple festivals, deeply integrating film into cosmopolitan daily life. This established culture, recognized internationally, provides endless variety for movie lovers, from art-house discoveries to blockbusters, enriching long-term relocation with sophisticated entertainment. Expats enjoy unmatched accessibility that elevates quality of life through cultural immersion.

Shanghai boasts numerous venues scaling from intimate bars to large halls with frequent programming across rock, hip-hop, electronic, jazz, and indie, plus regular international tours and a thriving local scene enabling multiple weekly shows. Music lovers relocating here can easily attend diverse performances any night, enriching expat social life and cultural immersion. The ecosystem's strength ensures long-term satisfaction, with high-quality sound and atmospheres supporting an active music routine.

Shanghai features a vibrant live music landscape with numerous dedicated venues in Jing'an and Huangpu districts hosting rock, indie, electronic, and international acts several times weekly. The city draws major touring musicians and hosts established festivals, creating predictable cultural engagement for residents, though it does not reach the scale of daily programming or festival prominence of the world's top live music destinations.

Shanghai offers vibrant nightlife with dense venue concentration in Jing'an, Huangpu, and Pudong featuring rooftop bars, cocktail lounges, mega-clubs, and live music venues operating until 3-4am on weekends. The scene is active most evenings with good variety and international influence, appealing to both expats and locals. However, government licensing controls and tourist-oriented pricing prevent it from reaching world-class status despite strong activity levels.

Shanghai provides expats with comfortable walking across areas like the French Concession, Jing'an, and Pudong at any time, backed by low street assault rates and high surveillance. Minor pickpocketing in tourist spots is the main concern, easily managed without altering daily commutes or outings. This reliability allows women to explore neighborhoods freely at night, fostering a secure long-term urban lifestyle.

Property crime is low across expat residential compounds and work areas, where theft is rare and basic door locks suffice without bars or armed services. Daily commutes on metro require only normal caution for pickpockets in crowds, with most residents unaffected long-term. Newcomers benefit from a secure environment promoting ease in protecting belongings.

Shanghai maintains a concerning fatality rate around 7 per 100K, where dense traffic and spotty enforcement create above-average risks for pedestrians and cyclists despite growing infrastructure, pushing expats to alter habits significantly for safety. Protected lanes exist centrally but fade outward, heightening injury potential during walks or scooter trips in unpredictable flows. Long-term residents adapt to these gaps, making routine mobility cautious rather than effortless.

Shanghai is distant from major plate boundaries so M4+ earthquakes are infrequent, but the city’s soft alluvial delta soils can amplify shaking from distant events and increase disruption. Building codes are robust in new construction, so earthquakes are an occasional concern rather than a constant feature of daily life.

Shanghai sits on a humid coastal delta with limited contiguous forest fuels near the urban area, and significant wildfires are rare. Smoke exposure and evacuations from wildfires are minimal, allowing residents to live with little wildfire concern except in exceptional dry years.

Shanghai sits on a low-lying river delta and experiences seasonal heavy rains and occasional storm surge/tidal influence that lead to localized street and basement flooding and episodic drainage overload. The city has extensive flood defenses and pumping, but recurring localized inundation and transit disruptions during heavy storms mean newcomers should monitor weather alerts and be prepared for route changes.

Shanghai hosts extensive multinational offices, finance and tech clusters and regularly posts professional roles, but the majority of local hiring still prefers Mandarin speakers, so English-accessible positions are a minority. The market is active and diverse, enabling hires within a few months for well-qualified candidates who can navigate visa and language requirements.

Shanghai is a globally significant financial and commercial center with a deep central business district, a major stock exchange, numerous multinational and state-owned corporate headquarters, and extensive professional services supporting trade, finance, technology, and advanced manufacturing. Its metropolitan economy is enormous and diversified, providing high long-term career ceilings for senior roles in multiple knowledge-intensive sectors.

Shanghai supports a very wide range of mature industries — international finance, trade/shipping and port logistics, manufacturing and advanced engineering, technology and startups, professional/legal services, real estate/construction, healthcare/biotech, creative/media, tourism/hospitality and energy/chemical sectors — exceeding 10 major industries with deep professional employment. No single sector fully dominates skilled employment, so career changers can generally find opportunities across unrelated fields without relocating.

Shanghai has an extensive, well-funded startup ecosystem with substantial yearly VC investment, many local and regional VC firms, strong accelerators and a track record of major exits and unicorns. The city offers a large talent pool in engineering, product and finance and comprehensive professional and financial services that support multi-stage fundraising domestically. Its scale and capital availability make it a fully viable place to build, fund and scale startups through Series B+.

Shanghai functions as China’s principal commercial and financial hub with 100+ major multinational operations, multiple APAC/China regional headquarters, major tech and banking offices, and extensive shared-service and operations centres. The presence of large teams across sectors offers broad multinational career opportunities.

Shanghai's coworking market is highly mature with 75+ high-quality spaces distributed across central and suburban districts, strong presence of global and local brands, a full range of tiers (hot-desks to enterprise suites), frequent events and networking programs, and generally robust, high-speed internet and 24/7 access in many locations. The city-wide density means most long-term remote professionals can find suitable workspace near where they live.

Shanghai offers a dense professional calendar with regular weekly/biweekly meetups across finance, tech, commerce and creative industries, prominent annual conferences, and active chambers of commerce; many events are run with English accessibility for internationals. Corporate networking, coworking speaker series and investor gatherings occur frequently, enabling multiple meaningful contacts per week for English-speaking professionals.

Shanghai boasts over 70 universities such as Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong, with comprehensive coverage of all fields, active research clusters, and increasing English-medium master's programs plus open lectures. The enormous student demographic energizes urban life with international events, youthful districts, and innovation collaborations, appealing to expats valuing academic vibrancy. Relocators enjoy easy integration into a world-class education hub fostering continuous professional growth and cultural dynamism.

As with other major mainland Chinese cities, many global productivity and communication platforms are inaccessible without circumvention; corporate VPNs are typically required and are subject to disruption. This level of blocking creates persistent daily friction for international remote work.

Shanghai boasts a large ecosystem of 30+ cuisines including Ethiopian, Vietnamese, and Brazilian, with strong immigrant authenticity in neighborhoods like the French Concession, thrilling food-loving expats long-term. Depth in specialties ensures varied meals daily, fostering a dynamic dining life without repetition. Geographic spread across the city enhances convenience for ongoing relocation satisfaction.

Shanghai offers high-quality dining across street food, casual, and fine dining categories, with strong local Shanghai cuisine traditions alongside growing international options and acclaimed restaurants. The city maintains solid ingredient quality and skilled preparation across price points, though tourist-oriented areas show more uneven quality; locals and residents who navigate neighborhood restaurants experience consistent excellence. A relocating food lover would find ample opportunity to eat well across diverse cuisines and settings, supported by a dining scene that respects technique and local ingredients.

Shanghai has extensive brunch availability with numerous well-rated venues distributed across Jing'an, Huangpu, and Pudong districts. The city offers diverse brunch styles including local interpretations, international fusion, and Western classics, with reliable service and strong expat community support making brunch a well-developed dining segment.

Expat vegans benefit from solid mock-meat havens and creative plant-based spots in Jing'an, Xuhui, and the Bund area, offering quality meals that integrate well into urban routines. Multiple neighborhoods host well-rated venues for diverse Chinese fusion, reducing isolation in a meat-centric culture. This supports sustained satisfaction, though peak density eases planning more than outskirts.

Shanghai's expats rely on a hyper-competitive delivery market with extensive restaurant partnerships spanning all price points and cuisines, delivering in under 30 minutes across the entire metropolis nearly 24/7. Late-night and weekend availability ensures busy professionals or those under the weather always have quality options without venturing out. This seamless variety and speed make long-term relocation far more comfortable and convenient.