Abstract: In the progress of early Chinese modernization, Shanghai and Wuhan were outstanding representative cities among other cities. The two possessed many similarities and differences. From the aspect of sources for the happening of modernization, the two belonged to “later extrinsic developing modernization”. Because Shanghai was twenty years earlier in the modernization than Wuhan, the gap between the two in the early modernization came into being. But from the aspects of connotation of modernization, the modernization of the two cities was incomplete. Their common prominent characteristic was strangely rapid development in economy, without realization of political democracy and multicultural development. Compared with Wuhan, Shanghai was ahead in the degree of opening and development, which was relatively weakly controlled by the feudalist government. Shanghai was more democratic in politics and more widely open in culture. But from the aspect of development progress of early modernization, the two cities were “prosperous because of commerce”. And Wuhan was more with this feature. Owing to the above mentioned reasons and the other reasons, the dynamic factor of the early modernization of the two cities were different, thus with different influence.

Key words: Wuhan, Shanghai, early modernization, opening to the outside, commercial intercourse