The central civic square of Shanghai, occupying the site of the former Shanghai Race Course on the boundary between the Old Town and the International Settlement. People's Square was developed from the 1950s onward and now anchors the main transit hub (multiple metro lines converge here) and the surrounding cluster of municipal cultural institutions.
The square itself is functional rather than beautiful — wide paved expanses used primarily for transit — but the surrounding buildings include the Grand Theatre (1998, one of the finest concert halls in China), the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre (with its enormous 1:500 scale model of the city, highly recommended), and the Shanghai Museum on the southern edge.