The Bund (Shanghai)

The Bund
"The Bund" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese	外滩
Traditional Chinese	外灘
Literal meaning	"Outer Beach"
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wàitān IPA [u̯âi̯.tʰán] Wu Romanization Nga-thae (Shanghainese)

The Bund or Waitan (Chinese: 外滩; pinyin: Wàitān, Shanghainese: nga³thae¹, literally: "Outer Beach") is a waterfront area in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East-1 Zhongshan Road) within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River in the eastern part of Huangpu District. The area along the river faces the modern skyscrapers of Lujiazui in the Pudong District. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas. It is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Shanghai. Building heights are restricted in the area.

The word bund means an embankment or an embanked quay. The word comes from the Persian word band, through Hindustani, meaning an embankment, levee or dam (a cognate of English terms "bind", "bond" and "band", and the German word "Bund"). Mumbai's Apollo Bunder and city names like Bandar Abbas and Banda Aceh share the same etymology. The various "bunds" in east Asia, may therefore be named after the bunds/levees in Baghdad along the Tigris, given by the immigrating Baghdadi Jews, like the prominent Baghdadi Sassoon family who settled their businesses in Shanghai, and other port cities in east Asia in the 19th century, and heavily built up their harbors. In these Chinese port cities, the English term came to mean, especially, the embanked quay along the shore. In English, "Bund" is pronounced to rhyme with "fund".