The Tianjin Natural History Museum, located at the west end of the Machang Road, was set up in 1914 by a French missionary and opened in 1927, with the previous name as Beijiang Museum. It got the present name in 1957. 

The museum is specialized in collections of paleontology and paleo-anthropology fossils. Specimens total 380,000, and the key collections show the paleontology group in the late period of Chinese Cenozoic Era, including fossils of ancient mammals excavated from the Yushe Basin of Shanxi Province, the Qingyang Basin of Gansu Province, the Yang Yuanni Basin of Hebei Province and the Inner Mongolia -- the abundance of paleontology groups of the four places are rare worldwide, which are important references for researches on the evolvement of amniotes.

The museum features four basic displays of Animal, Paleontology, Plants and Paleo-anthropology fossils, containing ancient reptiles and mammals, animal ecology, insects and aquatic organisms. 

The museum often organizes small-scale roadshows such as the Exhibition of Butterflies, the Exhibition of Prepotency, the Exhibition of Fostering Flowers, the Exhibition of Protecting Rare Birds and Beneficial Birds, the Exhibition of Environmental Protection, the Exhibition of Strange Animals and so on in different districts, counties, municipalities and provinces.

In collaboration with related scientific research institutes, the museum has compiled books such as the Brochure of Hemiptera Insects in China, Tibetan Insects, Major Agricultural Pests in China, Forest Insects in Yunnan, and so on.