Sheshan

"Sheshan" redirects here. For the island, see Sheshan Island. For other uses, see Sheshan (disambiguation).

Sheshan
Sheshan, its observatory, and Our Lady of Sheshan Cathedral
Chinese	佘山
Literal meaning	She Hill(s)
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shéshān Wade–Giles She Shan Wu Romanization Zosè

Sheshan, formerly known as Zose, is a pair of hills in Songjiang District in western Shanghai, China. The two hills are distinguished as East and West Sheshan, although the more important western hill is also called Sheshan on its own. East Sheshan has an elevation of 100.8 m (331 ft) and West Sheshan has an elevation of 118 m (387 ft), it is the highest point in Shanghai, there is a small valley between them. The area around the two hills is a forest park.

Basilica

It is surmounted by the Our Lady of China Catholic church, Sheshan Basilica, which was built there between 1922 and 1936 following the establishment of a chapel in 1867, soon replaced by a first church in 1871-1873 by French missionaries. Services in the church are held in Latin. The road to the top of Sheshan hill represents the stations of the cross Via Dolorosa (The Way of Suffering) that Christ took to his crucifixion. Every May pilgrims flock to the chapel and the holy road by the hundreds.

Observatory

The hill also houses an observatory founded in 1900 by Jesuits, the Sheshan Observatory. In addition to scientific equipment of the modern era, it displays a replica of a Han dynasty earthquake monitoring device, consisting of a jar with dragon heads mounted around the outside and a pendulum inside. Each dragon has a steel ball in its mouth. When an earthquake occurred, the pendulum would swing, knock a dragon causing its mouth to open and a ball to drop out thereby indicating the quake's direction.

Transportation

Sheshan is in the vicinity of Sheshan Station on Line 9 of the Shanghai Metro.

See also

• Sheshan Golf Club