Baptized by famed Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, Xu Guangqi and his descendants donated large plots of land to the Catholic Church, including the site of the St. Ignatius Cathedral.

During the 18th century it was known by Shanghai's western residents as "Ziccawei" or "Siccawei" in English, and "Zikawei" or "Zi-ka-wei" in French, from the pronunciation of its name in Shanghainese.

With land donated by Xu Guangqi's family and those acquired by other means, the Society of Jesus established a grand cathedral as well as an entire one square mile complex that covers most of present-day Xujiahui.

In addition to the cathedral, the French Jesuits also built orphanages, monasteries, schools, libraries and the Xujiahui observatory [zh] (now the Shanghai Bureau of Meteorology).

Established by Jesuits in 1850, Xuhui (St. Ignatius) College was the first educational institution in China to offer a fully western curriculum.

Several of the convent buildings scattered around Xujiahui are still visible in various states of preservation: one (structurally modified but still recognizable) serves as the office of the Xuhui District Government and People's Procurate.

The Tou-Se-We Orphanage (Mandarin: Tushanwan) operated by the church, whose workshops supplied much of the religious art on Xujiahui's religious buildings, is half a mile to the south of Xujiahui junction; the sole surviving building of the orphanage is now the Tou-Se-We Museum.

A few years after the People's Liberation Army entered Shanghai, the Jesuits abandoned Xujiahui and relocated to nearby posts such as Macau or Manila.

From 1949 onwards, most of the large houses and estates in Xujiahui were compulsarily acquired or seized by the government and converted into factories.

The main Xujiahui shopping district is centered on the intersection of the streets Hongqiao Rd, Huashan Rd, Zhaojiabang Rd and North Caoxi Rd.

Each of these streets terminates at the intersection, which is home to three supermarkets, six major shopping malls and nine large-scale office towers.

The park also contains a manmade meandering brook (miniature model of the course of the Huangpu River), basketball courts, and a children's playground.

The tomb, recently restored according to its original set-up, is a curious combination of a large Christian cross as the grave marker, with a traditional Chinese "spirit way" lined with stone animals.