Paris of the East

plural Parises of the East

1. uncountableusuallyA major city that is considered as magnificent or culturally significant as Paris.

   "You know, of course," noted another officer, "there are any number of Parises of the East, from Warsaw to Bucharest."

   2004, Cornelia Golna, City of Man's Desire: A novel of Constantinople, Go-Bos Press, translation of original in Dutch, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 318

1. datedFormer nickname for Bucharest: the capital and largest city of Romania.
2. datedFormer nickname for Casablanca: a major city in Morocco.
3. obsoleteFormer nickname for Lahore: a major city in modern Pakistan; in use during the time of the British Raj.
4. datedFormer nickname for Phnom Penh: the capital and largest city of Cambodia.
5. datedFormer nickname for Hanoi: a major city in Vietnam.
6. datedFormer nickname for Shanghai: a major port city and direct-administered municipality of China.

   1934 — Anon., All About Shanghai: A Standard Guidebook, The University Press, Shanghai. 1983 reed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, →ISBN. p. 73; What odds whether Shanghai is the Paris of the East or Paris the Shanghai of the Occident ?

   1 more example

   The Paris of the East, it was called. Cosmopolitan, bustling, exotic, mysterious, Shanghai was a cultural crossroads and the quintessential liberty town for sailors.

   1996, James R. Schultz, “Paris Of The East”, in The Long Way Home: A Pacific Odyssey of World War II, Creative Arts Book Company, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 95