At 201 People’s Road and at the southern end of the People’s Square, Shanghai Museum is a large museum of ancient Chinese art. It was opened in 1952 and moved here in 1994. The new museum has a floor space of 38,000 saquare meters and has five stories above the ground and two stories under the ground. It has a square base and a round top, symbolizing the ancient Chinese philosophy that the square earth is under the round sky, Shanghai Museum houses a collection of one million cultural relics, especially the bronzes, ceramics, and calligraphic works and paintings. It embraces 11 thematic exhibition rooms, one hall for displaying donated cultural relics and three exhibition hails. It has an actual exhibition area of 12,000 square meters. On the first floor are Exhibition Room of Ancient Chinese Bronzes. Exhibition Room of Ancient Chinese Sculptures and an exhibition hall. On the second floor are the Exhibition Room of Ancient Chinese Ceramics, the Exhibition Room of Modem Chinese Ceramics and an exhibition hail. On the third floor are the Exhibition Room of Chinese Calligraphic Works from Various Historical Periods, the Exhibition Room of Chinese Paintings from Various Historical Periods and the Exhibition Room of Chinese Seals from Various Historical Periods. On the fourth floor Jade, the Exhibition Room of Ancient Chinese Currencies and Coins, the Exhibition Room of Chinese Furniture from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Exhibition Room of Handicrafts of Various Ethnic Groups in China and an exhibition hall, In addition there are two temporary halls. The museum is fa- mous for its rich and complete collections of cultural relics of high grades at home and abroad. Such as the great three or four-legged cauldrons from the Western Zhou Dynasty, the crabapple shaped bowl of the Yue kiln from the Tang Dynasty, Ya Tou Wan Calligraphic works on Silk by Wang Xianzhi from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Painting Recluse by Sun Wei from the Tang Dynasty are all rare cultural relies.

Shanghai Museum has organized exhibitions of its collections of cultural relics in foreign countries and sponsored international academic research forums. Also it has published books and periodicals on archaeological findings and cultural relics. In addition, the museum has established offices in charge of cultural exchanges, archaeology mad repairing of cultural relics.