Human world
Liverpool merchants controlled the shipping trade with Hong Kong and Shanghai after 1834.
Some of the Chinese seamen who worked on Liverpool ships settled here. As a result Liverpool's Chinese communities are believed to be the oldest in Europe. By the 1950s, the largest group of people from Shanghai (outside of China) lived in the city.
"Once there were between four and five thousand Shanghainese in Liverpool," says Yuan Dehai, a Shanghainese seaman who worked for the Blue Funnel Line in the 1940s. "During the war...if the crew were Shanghainese, they were all sent to Liverpool...all the Chinese were sent to Liverpool."
These links continue today. In 1997 Liverpool was twinned with Shanghai.
The 'Fernie' cabinet vividly illustrates the link between China and Liverpool. Find out more about the cabinet and its content.