Based on the onboard lidar data from CALIPSO satellite of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from January 2007 to November 2010, the vertical distribution of optical and micro-physical properties of aerosols around Shanghai during the haze periods when relative humidity less than 80% were revealed by analyzing the parameters of 532 nm total attenuated backscatter coefficient, volume depolarization ratio and total attenuated color ratio. The results showed that during dry haze periods, the scattering ability of lower troposphere (0-2 km) was the highest and the main constituents were regular aerosols. The scattering ability of the upper troposphere (8-10 km) was the lowest and the proportion of irregular aerosols was the highest among the five altitude layers. In addition, the scattering ability of the altitude range (2-8 km) was lower than that of the lower troposphere, and the scattering ability and irregularity of aerosols at different altitude levels within the range were close to each other. Fine particle aerosols were the dominant aerosols in altitude range of 0-10 km. To be noted, the proportion of fine particles decreased with increasing altitude within the altitude range of 2-8 km. The proportion of large and irregular aerosols were higher in spring, whereas the proportion of fine and regular aerosols were higher in summer. According to the analysis of a dry haze episode on May 7th, 2007, it was found that a mass of aerosols mainly distributed within the altitude range of 0-1.5 km and partially within the altitude range of 4.0-5.5 km. The HYSPLIT model was applied to analyze the sources of aerosols in the episode, and the results indicated that the dry haze was mainly caused not only by local emissions but also by the dust aerosols transported from Mongolia, the northwest and north of China by the airflow.