Abstract:

The Urban spatial morphology of a city comprehensively reflects its generation, growth, form, structure, function and development. An in-depth analysis of a variety of historical documents and maps shows that the spatial morphological evolution of Shanghai from 1843 to 1949 can be divided into six distinct stages: “inner and outer cities”, “new and old cities”, “belt city”, “three-dimensional city”, “block city” and “main and secondary cities”. The spatiotemporal characteristics of the evolution of modern Shanghai’s urban spatial morphology reveal the institutional, economic and cultural characteristics of the city in different historical periods, which can be summarized as: river-oriented axis, all the way to the sea; circle development, towards openness; diversified development, heterogeneous interweaving. Clarifying the historical evolution of this urban spatial morphology will help us to explore the richer historical and cultural connotations of the city and grasp the direction and main trend of the development and improvement of urban spatial morphology in the future.

Key words: urban spatial morphology, evolution, Shanghai