This impressive five-floor museum has over 200,000 pieces in its collection, ranging from oracle bones and an excellent inkstone exhibit to various artefacts and documents related specifically to the city's historical development. The 3rd floor, which focuses on Tianjin's development as a modern city from the Opium War onwards, is a highlight.
Part of a landscaped park complex called Wénhuà Zhōngxīn (文化中心, Cultural Centre) that includes a shopping centre with places to eat and a handful of other free-to-enter museums, this area is south of the city centre by Wenhua Zhongxin metro station; turn right out of Exit K and the museum is the central one of three on the other side of the lake, with Tianjin Art Museum to its left and Tianjin Natural History Museum, inside an all-glass stingray-shaped building, to its right.