Banpo Museum is located in a modern building some 3 miles to the east of Xian City in Shaanxi Province. It is the first museum built for a 'mankind site', a habitation site of early man. Its name comes from its location on the northern side of Banpo Village. The site marks a settlement that dates to the matrilineal clan commune period of the Neolithic period. Before its discovery in the twentieth century, it had been lying in wait for some 6,000 years.

It is an extension of the museum designed upon archeological findings belong to the Yangshao Culture. From 1954 to 1957, 45 houses, 6 pottery-kiln sites, 250 tombs, over 200 cellars and pits, more than 10,000 pieces of production tools and articles for daily use, and grain and vegetable seeds were unearthed from the site. Covering about 4,500 square meters, the exhibit area of Banpo Museum is divided into two Exhibition Halls and a Site Hall.

Two Exhibition Halls
This permanent exhibition hall is about the unearthed relic exhibitions consisting of the First Hall and the Second Hall. Covering stone axes, stone spades, stone knives, stone scrapers, arrowheads, millstones, braided fabric, bone awls, bone needles, fishhooks, ceramic basins, ceramic bowls, etc. The second Exhibition Hall is primarily used for auxiliary exhibitions. Special shows are held here on ethnology, folklore and the history of art related to the prehistoric culture. All the exhibitions here reflect the social life, culture, art and inventions of the period.

The Site Hall
Covering an area of 3000 square meters, the Banpo Site is divided into residential area, pottery making area and burial section. With the residential area in the center, the Site Hall shaped an irregular oval. Around the residential area there is a chasm, which is said to be the fortification for guarding against outside tribes and wild animals. At the northern area of the chasm there is the burial section, where lies some original coffins, as well as ceramic wares and some other adornments.

All the collections displayed in Banpo Museum present visitors an outlook of the aboriginal village and reflect the production level and development, the social systems and the civilization at that period of time.