The first house of the Museum was the archive department of the Town Hall. As the number of exhibits was growing, the magistracy bought, in 1908, the ancient stone building at 6 Rynok Square to house the National Museum named after King Jan III Sobieski. In 1918, five halls were given to the History Museum, to house the town's collections.

In 1926, Lvovites acquired another building for the Museum, at 4 Rynok Square. Five thousand items from the collection of the History Museum were transferred to this new building and opened for public observation on the 22nd of September, 1929.

On the 8th of May 1940, the History Museum of Lviv and the National Museum named after King Jan III Sobieski were united to form one institution - the Lviv History Museum.

Today, it stores over 320,000 museum objects. The Museum's major collections include materials of archaeological excavations, tools, wares by craftsmen of Lviv's guilds, works of art, old coins, orders and medals and arms and weapons.

Museum was affiliated with its branch "Literary Lviv in the first half of the 20th century" at Gvardiyska Str. in the early 1990s. Its new departments were set up in the towns of Brody and Peremishliany. Other major offshoots are: the History Museum of Old-Ruthenian Town of Zvenigorod; the Museum of Colonel Yevhen Konovalets (OUN leader) in the village of Kulchytsi, Sambir district; and the Tustan' Historical and Cultural Preserve.