Travel Routes

Yu Garden: A Private Garden of Four Centuries Ago, Tucked Behind Nanjing Road

Yu Garden sits in the north-east of the old town in Huangpu. It began in 1559, when Pan Yunduan, a provincial treasurer of Sichuan, built it to keep his father comfortable, hence the name meaning joy for the elders. The original covered under thirty mu; today, with the Inner Garden, it is about 1.8 hectares, the only fully surviving Ming garden in Shanghai and a national protected monument since 1982. The great rockery of Taihu stone at the entrance is Ming original, and outside the gate lie the nine-turning bridge and the noise of the City God Temple.