Shanghai's 10 Most Popular Tourist Attractions During Golden Week 2017

Now that the fervor of Golden Week and the Mid-Autumn Festival has finally died down - at least until next year, that is - the Shanghai Tourism Bureau has gone about tallying up all of the ticket stubs and releasing figures of the most popular tourism attractions of the city this year.

Between September 30 to October 8 2017, Shanghai was visited by over 10.59 million tourists, with people on flights in and out of Pudong and Hongqiao airports totaling 874,000.

These numbers will hardly come as a surprise though, after a study in July ranked Shanghai as the third best city for tourism in China.

A whopping 7.17 million people visited the 135 tourism destinations that the Bureau monitors. Here's a list of the top ten, in descending order:

10. Natural History Museum (97,000 visitors)

With exhibitions ranging from the beginnings of the universe to the evolution of life on our planet and an outlook at the future based on industrialization and urbanization, museums (unsurprisingly) make up a large section of the top ten sites.

9. China Art Museum (113,900 visitors)

Classic collections feature beside Chinese modern art at the beautifully-designed museum that saw just shy of 114,00 visitors interested in history and culture.

[Image copyright of Location Scout]

8. Happy Valley (117,000 visitors)

Waiting in endless queues for a thrill of all about 30 seconds on a rollercoaster, as tends to be standard practice at any theme park, must have been worth the wait as the amusement park saw 117,000 grace its rides.

[Image copyright of Theme Park Review]

7. Century Park (123,000 visitors)

Located in Pudong, Century Park lends a refreshingly calm atmosphere to the otherwise loud and frenetic air that Shanghai tends to possess.

6. Oriental Pearl Tower (149,000 visitors)

An iconic part of the Shanghai skyline, the Oriental Pearl Tower was always going to make this list. With a number of observation levels, great views of the city can be gleamed from up the tower.

5. Science and Technology Museum (179,000 visitors)

Another museum making the list, the Science and Technology Museum attracted 179,000 visitors over the nine-day period collated by the Shanghai Tourism Bureau.

[Image copyright of Top China Travel]

4. Fengjing Water Town (191,500 visitors)

Just over 40 miles southwest of downtown Shanghai, Fengjing is the largest ancient water town in Shanghai. Increasingly known for its "peasant art", the water town attracted a large number of people this year.

[Image copyright China Discovery]

3. Shanghai Zoo (222,000 visitors)

With a vast array of animals - including everyone's favorite, the panda - the Shanghai Zoo made for a popular destination among holiday revelers.

2. Shanghai Wild Animal Park (239,000 visitors)

Covering an area of 153 hectares, the Shanghai Wild Animal Park offers an alternative form of seeing animals more akin to their natural environments. Ultimately, it proved more popular than the Shanghai Zoo, but only just. Naturally, we had to put another photo of pandas - because who doesn't love pandas?

1. Zhujiajiao Water Town (402,000 visitors)

Winning by a country mile was the Zhujiajiao water town. Aged at over 1,700 years old, the picturesque destination boasts many perfect photo opportunities with ancient bridges, waterways and traditional Chinese-style buildings.

[Image copyright of @fuldendehneli]

Wondering where Shanghai Disney is in all of this? They hadn't released figures at the time of writing.