Hangzhou, as the provincial capital of Zhejiang, now has a history of over 2200 years since it was established as a county in the Qing Dynasty. It was once the capital of Wuyue Kingdom and the Southern Song Dynasty. Hangzhou features a host of cultural relics with many natural and cultural old sites found in West Lake Scenic Area and surrounding areas. Among them, the most representative ones include West Lake Culture, Liangzhu Culture, silk culture, tea culture and many stories and legends handed down that now have become the representative of Hangzhou culture.

Museums carry the historical memories of the entire human world or civilizations and house cultural and historical relics of them. Museums keep and record human civilizations and tell modern people the origins of human beings and the past glories and history of our ancestors. The so-called cultural relics are the fossils of human activities and places to display these fossils are museums. Hangzhou boasts of rich historical, tourism and cultural resources, and has over 50 museums of different sizes.