The National Museum of China has a total construction area of about 200,000 square meters, a collection of more than 1.4 million items, and 48 exhibition halls.

[8] The museum's "Road to Rejuvenation" exhibit was the site for Xi Jinping's November 2012 articulation of the Chinese Dream political concept.

[10] The museum, covering Chinese history from the Yuanmou Man of 1.7 million years ago to the end of the Qing dynasty (the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history), has a permanent collection of 1,050,000 items,[11] with many precious and rare artifacts not to be found in museums anywhere else in China or the rest of the world.

[14] The exhibit hall addressing the life of Deng Xiaoping includes the Stetson hat he was given during at a rodeo during his 1979 visit to the United States.

"[17] Yves Carcelle, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton Malletier, defended the exhibition by stating: "What's important is what you are going to discover.

"[17] Some critics have also alleged the museum's modern historiography tends to focus on the triumphs of the CCP, while minimizing or ignoring politically sensitive subjects such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.