Nantong

Nantong sits on the north bank of the Yangtze where the river meets the sea, directly across from Shanghai in southeastern Jiangsu. Often called 'the first modern city of China,' it was developed in the early 1900s by the reformer and industrialist Zhang Jian, who founded China's first privately run museum, textile mills and normal schools here. The city remains a national center for cotton textiles and home furnishings, and its shipbuilding and marine-engineering yards line the estuary. New bridges and a rail tunnel now knit Nantong tightly into the Shanghai metropolitan area. Scenic Langshan hill and the moat-ringed Haohe River give the old town a gentle Jiangnan charm.