Shanghai History Museum

Museum of Shanghai's transformation from Yuan-era market town to modern megacity. Free; in the former Shanghai Race Club building on People's Square.

The Shanghai History Museum moved into the former Shanghai Race Club building in 2018. The building itself — a Renaissance Revival structure completed in 1934 on the south side of People's Square — was designed by Palmer & Turner and once served as the administrative centre for the city's colonial-era racing culture. The clock tower is now one of the most recognisable pieces of architecture on the square.

The permanent collection runs from prehistoric settlement through the Yuan-dynasty fishing village, the opening of the treaty port in 1843, the cosmopolitan Republican era, Japanese occupation, and into post-1949 transformation. The Bund-era sections are the most developed: scale models of 1930s Shanghai, original shop fronts reassembled as period streetscapes, sedan chairs, tram signs, enamel advertising panels, and documented accounts of the concession social hierarchy. The post-1949 galleries are more conventional but include material on the Cultural Revolution that some municipal museums tread carefully around.

Entry is free but requires an advance online reservation; walk-ins are sometimes accommodated if quota remains [VERIFY: source needed — May 2026]. The museum occupies multiple levels; a focused visit takes two hours. The location on People's Square puts it a short walk from the Shanghai Museum and the Urban Planning Exhibition Centre, which makes a combined half-day covering different facets of the city's history an efficient choice.