Abstract Superconductivity appears in the cuprates when a spin order is destroyed, while the role of charge is less known. Recently, charge density wave (CDW) was found below the superconducting dome in YBa 2 Cu 3 O y when a high magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the CuO 2 plane, which was suggested to arise from incipient CDW in the vortex cores that becomes overlapped. Here by 63 Cu-nuclear magnetic resonance, we report the discovery of CDW induced by an in-plane field, setting in above the dome in single-layered Bi 2 Sr 2− x La x CuO 6 . The onset temperature T CDW takes over the antiferromagnetic order temperature T N beyond a critical doping level at which superconductivity starts to emerge, and scales with the pseudogap temperature T *. These results provide important insights into the relationship between spin order, CDW and the pseudogap, and their connections to high-temperature superconductivity.