The British East India Company established China's first foreign-funded wharf, Hongkou (then known as Hongkew) in 1845. It grew to become the largest of its kind in 1853.

This kicked off a wave of port construction. Over a dozen foreign wharfs sprang up along the North Bund's shoreline.

Jardine Matheson acquired all of the North Bund's foreign wharfs in 1875 and built the Shanghai and Hongkew Wharf, from which tons of such Western products as textiles, machinery and glass entered China. Chinese tea and raw silk were, in turn, shipped to the West.

The nation's wharfs were nationalized after New China's founding in 1949.

The Shanghai and Hongkew Wharf was renamed Gaoyanglu in 1954. It then handled a third of the city's imports and exports, says Zhang Yaqing, a former senior official, who was in charge of its operations.