In 1955, the Yellow River Water Conservancy Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources sponsored an exhibition of harnessing Yellow River, touring around Beijing, Tianjin and the major cities along the Yellow River Valley. Starting from October 1957, the exhibition was permanently shown in Zhengzhou and named the Display Hall of Yellow River. In 1972, it was renamed the Yellow River Exhibition Hall and in June 1987 finally got the name of the Yellow River Museum.
Among the historical relics, tablet inscriptions and rubbings collected by the museum are the stone materials used to block up the river mouth,the Imperial Tablet with the handwriting of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in memory of blocking up the river mouth at the Mouyang Bridge in 1761, the rubbing from a stone tablet recording the flood level in 1843 and the tablet in memory of blocking up Huayuankou (garden mouth) in 1947. The collections of the museum also include the rocks of the key engineering projects of the Yellow River, the core samples and the fossil sample of Shanxi alligator excavated from the Hukou riverbed of the Yellow River.
The museum, covering an area of 1,200 square meters, briefs in a systematic way the general natural situations, the historic disasters, and the situations of harness and development of the Yellow River with pictures, videotapes, charts, engineering models, objects and samples, 500-odd exhibits in total. The part of harnessing and development consists of three topics: Prevention of Flood, Water-and-Soil Conservation, and Utilization and Protection of Water Resources. This part briefs the Yellow River floods and harnessing plans through the ages, the flood prevention engineering of the Yellow River, the Three-Gorges Key Water Control Project, the soil erosion of the loess plateau and the silt of the Yellow River, the water and soil conservation and its effects, the water quality and the status of water resources of the Yellow River, and the development of the water conservancy and hydraulic power of the Yellow River Valley.