SHANGHAI World Expo Museum will open to the public from May 1. Admission will be free, officials said yesterday.

The museum, spread over 40,000 square meters near Lupu Bridge and on the former Puxi Shanghai Expo site, showcases the history of world expos since 1851 — when Britain launched the Great Exhibition.

The museum will highlight the 2010 Shanghai World Expo as well as looking at what future expos might offer.

The only one of its kind in the world, the museum is a partnership between the Shanghai government and the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the governing body of World Expos.

More than 3,000 exhibits from expos between 2010 and 2015 are on display at eight exhibition halls. Archive photos, videos, documents as well as models and multimedia installations about past expos are also being exhibited.

The museum will open from 9am to 5pm daily, except Mondays (May 1 apart). It will issue 4,000 reservation tickets through its official website and WeChat account every day. An English language service will be available, said Liu Xiuhua, curator of the museum.

Construction on the museum started in December 2013.