Origin of "Hu" and "Shen"

Shanghai is called in Chinese ``Hu'' for short and ``Shen'' as a nickname. About 6,000 years ago, the western part of today's Shanghai dried up into land and its eastern part became a piece of land about 2,000 years ago. During the Spring-Autumn and Warring States Periods (770-221 BC), this area was once the feoff of Huang Xie, the Chun Shen Governor of the State of Chu. So, ``Shen'' comes from the title of the governor. During the Jin Dynasty (4th-5th centuries), fishermen living along the Songjiang River (today's Suzhou Creek) and the coast of the East China Sea created a fishing tool called ``Hu.'' By combining the name of the fishing tool and the then term for estuary of big rivers, they coined a Chinese character ``Hu'' to name the place as it sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the longest river in China.