Explore the real-world places that appear in Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Amherst Avenue, Shanghai, Shanghai Racecourse, Bund Waterfront, Lunghua Internment Camp, Soochow Creek and 10 more.
French Concession — Jim's family home
Jim Graham lives here in comfort and privilege before the Japanese invasion. His family's grand house represents the insulated world of British expats in Shanghai. Jim watches from the roof as Japanese aircraft attack the city, a turning point that shatters his childhood. The house is eventually requisitioned by the occupying forces, symbolizing the loss of his former life.
The French Concession was an international settlement in Shanghai established in 1849, becoming a haven for Western expatriates and a symbol of colonial privilege in China. By the 1930s, it was one of the most cosmopolitan areas in Asia.
The French Concession remains one of Shanghai's most charming neighborhoods, preserved with tree-lined streets and Art Deco architecture. Many of the original colonial villas still stand, though now converted to museums, galleries, and restaurants.
Visit: French Concession Historic District (historic site)
Jing'an District — Pre-war leisure and display
Jim attends the races with his family, embodying the carefree Western lifestyle before invasion. The racecourse represents the pinnacle of Shanghai's cosmopolitan excess and colonial glamour. Jim observes the wealthy expatriates with fascination, their confidence and privilege on full display as the war approaches.
The Shanghai Racecourse was built in 1848 and became the social center of Shanghai's Western community, hosting prestigious racing events attended by colonists, taipans, and dignitaries throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Shanghai Racecourse is now Jing'an Park, one of Shanghai's largest public parks. The grounds have been completely transformed into green space with gardens, though traces of the original track's oval shape can still be discerned from above.
Visit: Jing'an Park (park)
Along the Huangpu River — the colony's edge and escape route
Jim is separated from his parents near the Bund during the chaos of Japanese invasion. He witnesses the bombardment of ships and the desperate evacuation attempts. The waterfront becomes a landscape of destruction and refugee chaos. Jim searches the docks for his family, encountering wounded soldiers and fleeing expatriates amid exploding warehouses.
The Bund was Shanghai's prestigious waterfront promenade, lined with grand colonial banks, trading houses, and steamship offices. It served as the commercial heart of Shanghai's foreign settlement and the point of contact with the outside world.
The Bund retains its colonial architecture and remains Shanghai's most iconic waterfront, though now serving as a tourist destination and modern financial center. The historic buildings house luxury hotels, restaurants, and museums documenting Shanghai's colonial past.
Visit: The Bund (historic site)
Lunghua District — Three years of imprisonment
Jim is imprisoned here for three years following his capture. The camp becomes his entire world—a sprawling maze of barracks, parade grounds, and electrified fences. Jim befriends Basie, an American entrepreneur, and obsessively watches the distant Shanghai skyline. He experiences starvation, disease, and the psychological torment of confinement. The camp represents the erasure of his identity and the transformation from privileged boy to survivor.
Lunghua Internment Camp was established by the Japanese in 1942 to hold enemy nationals—primarily British and American civilians—in occupied Shanghai. It operated for nearly three years, holding approximately 2,000 prisoners in harsh conditions.
The original Lunghua Camp site is now occupied by residential developments and a secondary school. A small memorial and museum dedicated to the internees' experiences stands near the location, preserving testimony from survivors.
Visit: Lunghua Internment Camp Memorial and Museum (museum)
Industrial waterway — scenes of urban decay and escape
Jim navigates Soochow Creek in his desperate wanderings after escaping the internment camp near the war's end. The creek becomes a symbol of Shanghai's contaminated, dying landscape—filled with corpses, debris, and the refuse of occupation. He travels by sampan and raft, encountering other refugees and witnessing the collapse of Japanese authority.
Soochow Creek was Shanghai's main industrial waterway, lined with factories, warehouses, and shipyards. During the war, it became a dumping ground for military debris and the site of numerous atrocities and executions by occupying forces.
Soochow Creek has been cleaned up and is now a recreational waterway with restored embankments, parks, and cultural centers. Modern Shanghai's development has obscured much of its wartime role, though old warehouses and bridges remain as relics.
Visit: Soochow Creek (park)
Near Longhua — Jim's dreams of escape and entertainment
Jim dreams obsessively of the Shanghai Amusement Park and its rides, using fantasies of escape and freedom to survive the monotony and horror of camp life. He mentally rehearses his return to the park, transforming it into a symbol of his lost childhood and Western luxury. The park becomes both memory and unattainable dream, reinforcing his psychological state.
Shanghai had several amusement parks and recreational facilities before the war that served the Western expatriate community and wealthy Chinese. These were shuttered or repurposed during the Japanese occupation.
The site is now part of modern Shanghai's industrial district, with warehouses and manufacturing plants replacing the recreational facilities of the past. No trace of the amusement park remains visible.
Rural waterways — scenes of freedom and danger
After liberation, Jim travels the river systems in central Shanghai's outskirts, experiencing moments of genuine freedom and beauty. He encounters Chinese peasants and witnesses the landscape of rural occupation. The rivers represent both escape from the camp's constraints and the vastness of the war beyond his immediate experience.
The Jangse River and its tributaries formed Shanghai's primary transportation network for centuries, connecting the city to inland agricultural regions and serving as trade routes.
The river systems continue to serve Shanghai's commerce and transportation, now with modern locks and waterways integrated into the urban infrastructure. The surrounding landscape is increasingly urbanized.
West of Shanghai — site of Jim's mystical vision
Jim witnesses Japanese military aircraft and becomes obsessed with the spectacle of aerial warfare. He sees a Japanese aircraft explode in a catastrophic midair collision with an American fighter, an event that moves him spiritually and profoundly. This scene becomes a central metaphor for the sublime horror of war—beautiful, terrible, and transformative. Jim identifies with the Japanese pilots and their discipline.
Hungjao Airfield was a major Japanese military air base during the occupation of Shanghai, serving as a command center for air operations throughout central China. It was heavily bombed by American forces in 1944-1945.
The site is now the location of Shanghai's Jing'an District industrial area. Part of the original airfield has been redeveloped into modern warehouses, though some concrete structures from the military era remain embedded in current construction.
Near Bubbling Well Road — medical care during war
Jim is treated at the hospital during and after his internment, experiencing the collapse of medical services under occupation. He witnesses the suffering of both civilians and military personnel. The hospital becomes a microcosm of Shanghai's wartime chaos—overcrowded, undersupplied, and increasingly dysfunctional as the war nears its end.
Shanghai General Hospital was established in 1921 as a major medical facility for the international community. It continued operating under Japanese occupation, though with severely limited resources and staff.
Shanghai General Hospital remains a functioning modern medical facility, having been rebuilt and expanded many times since the war. The original colonial structure has been replaced with contemporary hospital buildings.
North Shanghai — tranquility amid conflict
Jim explores Jessfield Park before the invasion, representing the peaceful, ordered world of Shanghai's foreign settlement. The park symbolizes the separation between the privileged Western enclave and the Chinese city beyond its boundaries. It serves as a refuge where Jim experiences moments of innocent observation before warfare shatters everything.
Jessfield Park was established by the Western community in Shanghai as a recreational facility, featuring gardens, pavilions, and recreational grounds. It was one of several parks created to separate foreign settlements from the surrounding Chinese city.
Jessfield Park still exists and is maintained as a public green space in Shanghai. The original colonial landscaping has evolved, but the park continues to serve as a peaceful enclave in the urban environment, much as it did historically.
Visit: Jessfield Park (park)
Alternative holding facility — displacement and suffering
Jim experiences temporary internment or displacement in alternative holding facilities before being transferred to Lunghua. These spaces represent the Japanese administration's reorganization of civilian population control. The conditions vary wildly, creating uncertainty and fear about where Jim will be sent and for how long.
Japanese occupation forces used multiple internment and holding facilities throughout Shanghai to process and control enemy civilian populations, with prisoners often transferred multiple times based on administrative needs.
The sites of these facilities are now incorporated into Shanghai's modern urban landscape, with few visible remains. Historical plaques mark some locations where internment occurred.
Jing'an District — Jim's post-liberation wandering
After liberation, Jim wanders Shanghai's streets and encounters scenes of the defeated Japanese army and liberated civilians. Bubbling Well Road becomes a thoroughfare of his rediscovery of the city he once knew. He moves between recognizable landmarks and unrecognizable destruction, psychologically mapping his childhood against the devastated landscape.
Bubbling Well Road was one of Shanghai's main commercial and residential thoroughfares, connecting various districts and serving as a major route through the foreign settlement.
Bubbling Well Road is now Jing'an Road, one of Shanghai's primary east-west arteries and a major commercial center with modern office buildings, shops, and hotels lining the street.
Nanjing Road — symbols of colonial luxury destroyed
Jim observes or recalls the grand hotels and clubs of Shanghai's colonial era, which become targets of bombing and symbols of Western presence being systematically destroyed. The Park Hotel, once the city's most elegant building, represents the era of absolute Western dominance that is being violently overturned.
The Park Hotel, completed in 1934, was Shanghai's tallest building and a symbol of Western prestige and technological advancement. The Shanghai Race Club and other leisure facilities represented the peak of expatriate luxury.
The Park Hotel still stands on Nanjing Road, though it has been surpassed by modern skyscrapers. It now operates as a boutique hotel but remains a historic landmark. Many other colonial clubs and hotels have been demolished or repurposed.
Visit: Park Hotel (landmark)
East of the settlements — occupied territory and devastation
Jim ventures into or observes the Chinese sections of Shanghai, where the civilian population suffers far worse than the interned foreigners. He witnesses poverty, disease, and death on a scale that the international settlements have largely insulated him from. The Chinese city becomes a purgatorial landscape of absolute devastation and survival.
The Chinese city of Shanghai, outside the foreign concessions, was the site of the heaviest combat during the 1932 and 1937 Japanese invasions. It suffered massive destruction and was occupied by Japanese military forces with strict control over the civilian population.
Modern Shanghai has developed extensively over the former Chinese city districts, though some historic temples and traditional architecture remain. The site has been completely transformed by rapid urbanization.
Designated district for stateless refugees — Jewish quarter
Jim becomes aware of or moves through the Hongkew district, where thousands of stateless Jewish refugees from Europe are confined under Japanese occupation. This area becomes another layer of Shanghai's internment apparatus. The existence of this parallel refugee population reinforces Jim's understanding of the war's scale and the various categories of human displacement.
The Hongkew Ghetto was established by Japanese occupation forces in 1943, confining approximately 18,000 Jewish refugees from Europe. It became an additional center of international suffering and statelessness during the war.
The Hongkew district is now a vibrant residential area with rebuilt housing and commercial development. A memorial and museum dedicated to the Jewish refugees in Shanghai stand in the district, preserving this overlooked chapter of WWII history.
Visit: Hongkew Ghetto Memorial and Museum (museum)
More by J.G. Ballard: All J.G. Ballard books