Museum is a landmark museum that comprehensively reflects the local history of Shanghai. The preparation and construction of the Shanghai chorography museum can be traced back to the Shanghai Museum of History and Construction in the 1950s. In 1983, the “Shanghai Historical Relics Exhibition Hall” was completed. In July 1991, it was renamed as Shanghai History Museum.

In 1983, the Shanghai Historical Relics Exhibition Hall temporarily borrowed the fifth pavilion of the Shanghai Agricultural Exhibition Center in the western suburbs as a temporary exhibition site and was officially opened on May 27, 1984. Through more than 1,300 pieces of cultural relics, literature and pictures and other materials, the exhibition hall comprehensively displays the long history of Shanghai from ancient times to 1949 after liberation.

In October 1991, Shanghai History Museum reopened in No. 1286 Hongqiao Road, and the basic exhibition was “Modern Shanghai Urban Development History Exhibition”. More than 1,500 pieces of cultural relics were exhibited, which were divided into six parts and fully displayed the 100 years of Shanghai history from the time of opening the commercial port in 1843 to the time of liberation in 1949, with contents covering the opening and demise of the modern Shanghai Concession, the gradual improvement of the municipal appearance, the rapid rise of the economy, the growing prosperity of the culture, the unique folk customs of the immigrant society and the political situation of the past 100 years. The exhibition was selected by the National Cultural Heritage Administration as one of the first “Top Ten Displays and Exhibitions” of the National Heritage Museum System, which was closed in March 1999 due to the expiration of the lease term.

In May 2001, the “Shanghai Urban History Development Exhibition Hall”, which was prepard and built by Shanghai History Museum, was opened to the public at the annex room of the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower. The exhibition hall was divided into five parts: “Origin of Huating”, “City Landscape”, “A Glimpse of Port-opening”, “Metropolis Infested with Foreign Adventurers” and “Old Traces at Sea”. Mainly based on the artistic methods of scenes and models, supplemented by exhibition means such as audio, multimedia data query devices and multimedia film & television model synthesis devices, etc., with the development of urban architecture as the main clue, the exhibition hall reflected the process of Shanghai developing from a coastal fishing village to the largest industrial and commercial city in China since ancient times, highlighting the historical evolution of modern Shanghai in politics, economy, culture, society and living. In January 2003, Shanghai History Museum was named "Shanghai Patriotism Education Base" by the Shanghai Municipal Government. In recent years, Shanghai History Museum has hosted a large number of temporary exhibitions and mobile exhibitions, such as "Sun Yat-sen and Shanghai - Cultural Relics and Archives Exhibition", "Modern Metropolis - Shanghai-Hong Kong Social Style Exhibition", "Orientalization - European Porcelain Exhibition", which have achieved very good social responses and effects. While promoting various exhibitions to society, Shanghai History Museum has also held a series of public lectures “Famous Scholars Talk about Shanghai”, which have promoted the local history of Shanghai and the knowledge of cultural relics museums as well as achieved good social effects.

Shanghai History Museum has a total collection of about 110,000 pieces in 15 categories: painting, metal, ceramics, crafts, certificates & seals, literature, printing, textiles, stone carvings, coins, photographs, paper-cuts, stamps, records and other miscellaneous items. Among them, the ZhenYuan General Bronze Cannon manufactured in 1841 under the supervision of the Provincial Military Leader in Jiangnan Province Chen Huacheng, Wu You’s Banquet at Yu Garden of 1880, the cotton blowing machine manufactured by British Dobson and Barlow in1895, the manuscript of the late Qing Dynasty Pictorial of Dianshizhai, the square picture of the nomination and election of the presidential candidate of the Republic of China in 1911, the copper lion of Shanghai HSBC in 1923, the Baizi Bridal Sedan Chair of the Republic of China, the manuscript of "Shanghai Historical Collection" with Liu Yazi as the editor-in-chief of the Republic of China, the map of the old Shanghai, and the "Charity Report" are all important cultural relics in the collection.

Shanghai History Museum has long been engaged in academic research and survey on Shanghai's local cultural relics, customs, cultural environment, urban changes, and museum studies, as well as has edited and published a large number of books. Since 2002, Shanghai History Museum has edited and published the Shanghai History Museum Periodical. In 2007, Shanghai History Museum became a committee member with director-level of the Urban Museum Committee under the Chinese Museums Association. As a major member of the ICOM-CAMOC, Shanghai History Museum actively cooperates with domestic and international urban museums to contribute to the development of urban museums.

The newly built project of Shanghai History Museum has been included in the “12th Five-Year” Plan of Shanghai as a “12th Five-Year Major Cultural Project”. The new History Museum in the future will be a chorography museum that fully reflects the historical development of Shanghai. It is positioned to fully display Shanghai's cultural relics in ancient and modern history. A brand-new museum serving the public will soon be unveiled in the city.