Shanghai Historical Museum was built in 1983 with the original name Shanghai Historical Cultural Relics Display House. In 1991, it was changed to be Shanghai Historical Museum.

In the past, Shanghai Historical Cultural Relics Display House borrowed the fifth hall of Shanghai Agricultural Exhibition Hall in the West Suburb to be the temporary hall site. In 1984, it was officially opened to the public. Shanghai Historical Cultural Relics Display House was featured of its location or geographic records collections. It displays a long historic process from the ancient time to 1949 via more than 1300 cultural relics, documentaries and photos. In 1991, the new site of Shanghai Historical Museum was located at No.1286 on Hongqiao Road. The basic collections were on historical display of modern Shanghai urban development with more than 1500 cultural relics. The display is divided into 6 parts and they all thoroughly exhibited century-old Shanghai situation from 1843 to 1949 including: the appearance and fade-away of Shanghai Concessions, the gradual betterment of urban appearance, the fast economic uplift, the ongoing cultural prosperity, the unique ethnic-group customs in social motion. It was the firstly ranked into Youth Educational Base

Shanghai Historical Museum has around 30,000 pieces of cultural relics, which are mainly categorized as ancient Shanghai Historical Cultural relics and Modern Historical relics (including the colonial heritages of concessions). In 2001, Shanghai Historical Museum designed Shanghai Urban Historical Development Display Hall and moved it into the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The exhibition halls were divided into fiver sections such as the cradle of Huating, The appearance of city, the glance of the opened Shanghai, ten-mile blooming market and the old relics of Shanghai.

The new site of Shanghai Historical Museum has been ranked into the three-year Shanghai Cultural Construction Plan. Currently Shanghai Cultural-Relic Management Committee has the basic thought on development of Shanghai Historical Museum. The future Shanghai Historical Museum will thoroughly show Shanghai historical-development track as a local museum for more visitors to understand Shanghai’s past and today as well as future.