Opposite to the Bund of Shanghai, the Oriental Pearl Radio and Television Tower stands in Pudong, the Eastern side of the Huangpu River. The Tower was once the highest building in Shanghai, but it has been replaced by Shanghai World Financial Center. It has become one of symbolic buildings in Shanghai, just like the Statue of Liberty in New York, Sydney Opera House and Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Oriental Pearl Tower in combination with Jinmao Tower and World Financial Center add beauty to each other, reflecting the spectacular scenery of the international metropolis. With the service function of sightseeing, catering, shopping, entertainment, the River tour, the exhibition business, historical display, travel agents, and so on, the Oriental Pearl Tower has become one of tourism resorts in Shanghai.

The Oriental Pearl Radio and Television Tower is 468 meters in height and consists of three gigantic columns 9 meters in diameter, a spherical penthouse, an upper sphere, a lower sphere, five smaller spheres, the pedestal and the square. Together with Nanpu Bridge and Yangpu Bridge, it looks like two dragons playing with a ball, turning itself into a symbol of the reform and opening-up of Shanghai. The designers, inspired by rich imagination, arranges the 11 spheres of different sizes from high in the blue sky down to a carpet of green lawns, while the two huge dazzling ruby-like spheres are integrated with the two earth-shaped spheres of Shanghai International Convention Center, forming a poetic picture of “pearls, big and small, falling down into a jade plate”, magnificent and beautiful. Shanghai Urban Historical Development Gallery at the hall in the first floor is a museum devoting to an introduction of the development history of Shanghai in the previous century. The precious historical relics, documents, pictures, and the advanced film and television and stereo facilities vividly reflect the history of Shanghai urban development in the modern times. The exhibition in the gallery fully displays the profound political, economic, cultural, and social changes of Shanghai.