Monument to the People's Heroes, Memorial tower at the Bund waterfront in Shanghai, China

The Monument to the People's Heroes (上海市人民英雄纪念塔) stands in Huangpu Park at the Bund's north end, where Suzhou Creek meets the Huangpu River. Its three granite towers rise 60 metres, leaning together like rifles propped against one another. The complex also takes in a peninsula platform, a sunken circular plaza, an inscription stele and a 120-metre granite relief sculpture.

A tower was first proposed on 28 May 1949, when vice-mayor Pan Hannian presided over a foundation-laying ceremony in Huangpu Park attended by mayor Chen Yi and vice-mayor Sheng Pihua; the project then stalled. In 1987 the Shanghai People's Congress approved its revival, construction began in November 1988, and the tower was completed on 27 May 1994, the 45th anniversary of the PLA's entry into Shanghai.

The granite relief sculpture along the base, 120 metres long and 3.8 metres high, depicts scenes from Shanghai's revolutionary past, including the anti-British struggle and the Small Swords Society, the spread of democratic ideas, the workers' movement, the founding of the Communist Party, the war of resistance against Japan, and the liberation of Shanghai. The tower's name was inscribed by Jiang Zemin, then general secretary of the Communist Party.

The memorial sits within Huangpu Park at the Bund's northern end, making it easy to visit while exploring the waterfront. Walking is the best approach since you can take in other nearby landmarks and the river views as you move around.

The tower's three granite shafts rise 60 metres, not 24 as often repeated, and each is meant to stand for the revolutionary dead of Shanghai from the Opium War through the May Fourth Movement to the civil war. A 120-metre-long, 3.8-metre-high granite relief at its base depicts scenes from the Anti-British struggle and the Small Swords Society to the May Thirtieth Movement and the 1949 liberation of the city.