Seems like there’s a fake English town called “Thames Town” which is about 19 miles away from central Shanghai.

 

Thames Town was completed in 2006 and occupies an area of about 1 sq kilometre. It was designed to have a population of 10,000 inhabitants. From the start, it was known that the project was going to be costly, so 5 billion yuan was set aside just to make all of these happen.

 

Thames Town was just one of the 9 towns that were built around Shanghai. Each of the 9 towns was built to resemble towns in other parts of the world.

 

This Thames Town was inspired by different locations in Bristol, including Dorset and Chester.

 

Can you see the similarities? The picture on the left is Thames Town and the one on the right is the real thing, The Cross located in Chester.

 

Even though the project turned out pretty good, the village doesn’t really function…

so it’s sort of a ghost town.

This town was actually designed to attract the Chinese middle class but most of them bought houses as their second homes. However, the photographer, Reuben Wu, did mention something: “All the shops there had started off as other things – record shops, cafes, restaurants and clothing shops, but most had been shut down.”

 

While it may be a ghost town most of the time, weddings still take place in Thames Town.

 

Source: ReubenWuMusicianPhotographer