It’s well-established that China is a country with a long history and rich culture, but what is the best way to experience the profound Chinese culture? Visit museums. Almost every city in China has a museum, big or small, that displays the city's history and the archaeological findings made locally. Here is a guide to the ten most famous museums in China and their characteristics. By visiting all these museums, you will have a full new understanding of Chinese culture and history.
The National Museum of China is located on the eastern side of Tian’anmen Square, right across the Great Hall of the People. It’s a comprehensive museum owning many collections and involved in the study of cultural relics, archaeology study, public education, and the cultural communication between China and foreign regions. It’s also the largest museum with a single building in the world. The museum has housed over 1.1 million pieces of artifacts and cultural relics, stretching the whole history of China from primitive times to the late 20th century.
Treasure of the Museum: Houmuwu Square Cauldron (ding), a sacrificial ware made by Shang Dynasty King Zugeng for his mother Wu. It’s the heaviest bronze ware ever excavated in China and a representation of the bronze ware from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
Add.: Eastern side of Tian’anmen Square, No.16, East Chang’an Street, Dongcheng District.
Transportation: Tian’anmen Dong Station, Metro Line 1 or Qianmen Station, metro Line 2.
Opening Hours: 9:00 - 17:00 (closed in Monday)
Entrance ticket: free (passport or ID card needed).
The Palace Museum is situated inside the Forbidden City. It's a comprehensive museum built based on the imperial palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The Forbidden City had been the seat of imperial power for 500 years in Chinese history, leaving the Palace Museum 1.8 million pieces of historical and cultural relics. In 1987, UNESCO honored this magnificent complex as the best-preserved ancient wooden structure in the world.
Treasure of the Museum: Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, which is one of the most famous paintings in Chinese painting history. It’s a source for the study of Northern Song customs and folklife.
Opening Hours: April to October: 8:30-16:00; November to March: 8:30-15:30 (Closed every Monday)
Entrance Tickets: April 1 - Oct.31, 60 RMB; Nov. 1 - Next Mar.31, 40 RMB;
The museum is located in Taiwan, China. With the situation in Beijing worsening during the Anti-Japanese War, the government of the Republic of China decided to move some of the valuables in Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and the Guozijian to southern China. In 1933, those cultural relics were moved to Shanghai and then gradually transferred to Taiwan. In 1965, the National Palace Museum of Taipei was established to house all these fine art pieces. The entire museum is composed of two exhibition halls and several gardens. The No.1 Exhibition Hall is the must-see area.
Treasure of the Museum: The Green Jade Cabbage
The Jade Green Cabbage is a jade artifact with 100% similarity to the real cabbage. It used to be possessed by Concubine Jin of Guangxu Emperor and was placed in the Yonghe Palace of Forbidden City.
Opening Hours: 8:30 - 18:30; On Fridays and Saturdays (8:30 - 21:00).
Entrance ticket: 59 RMB.
The Shanghai Museum is situated in the center of Shanghai in People's Square in the Huangpu District. The museum is a well-known comprehensive museum of Chinese (ancient) arts. The exhibition building of the Shanghai Museum is designed with a round dome and square base, symbolizing the ancient Chinese philosophy of a round heaven and square ground. Meanwhile, with the development of modern technology, the lively presentation of some artifacts, creates a marvelous visual effect integrated with the traditional culture and modern spirit. Masterpieces from the Old Stone Age to modern times are featured in genres, including bronzeware, calligraphy, paintings, pottery, porcelain, jade wares, stone carvings, Jiaguwen imperial seals, ancient coins, silk embroidery, etc.
Museum Treasure: Yatou Bolus Handscroll
It's an excellent cursive script written by Wang Xianzhi, a famous calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, on a piece of silk. The work vividly fully revealed the writing skills of Wang Xianzhi.
Location: No.201 Renmin Da Dao, Shanghai 200003, P.R.China;
Opening time: 9:00 —17:00 (closed on Monday)
Entrance ticket: free.
Nanjing Museum is the earliest museum in China and the first comprehensive museum built by the Chinese government on a large scale. It used to be the National Central Museum established by Cai Yuanpei in 1933. It has six exhibition halls and six research institutions, including the History Hall, Special Exhibition Hall, Digital Hall, Art Hall, Hall of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Hall of the Republic of China, and institutions studying ancient architecture, art, folklore customs, and others. It also has an institution dedicated to the folklore culture, which is unique among other museums. By 2018, the museum has collected over 432,000 pieces of cultural relics, including bronze wares, jade, ceramics, utensils made of gold and silver, lacquerware, silk embroidery, calligraphy and paintings, seals, scriptures, and more.
Treasure of the Museum: Golden Beast
The Golden Beast is 9100g in weight, 10.2cm in height, 16cm in length, and 17.8cm in width. It has a gold content of 99%. Most of the golden wares discovered are made by thumping. However, the Golden Beast was cast and thumped, which is very rare. Besides, it's the heaviest golden ware ever excavated so far in China.
Operating Hours: 9:00 - 17:00 (closed on Monday)
The Shaanxi Provincial History Museum is reputed to be China’s Treasure House and Magnificent Palace of Chinese Civilizations. It’s also the grandest museum in Shaanxi province and northwestern China. The museum is famous for its architectural styles of the Tang Dynasty and the historical and cultural relics of up to 113,000 pieces. From the outside, the whole museum is like an elegant and imposing imperial palace; even the restrooms are designed exquisitely. Inside the museum, three galleries are displaying artifacts that can be traced back to as far as 1.15 million years ago and as near as before the Opium War.
Museum Treasure: Beast-Head-Shaped Agate Cup (Wine Vessel)
It's a Tang Dynasty wine vessel unearthed in Hejia Village of Xian in 1970. As one of the first batches of cultural relics prohibited from displaying abroad, the Beast-Head-Shaped Agate Cup is the finest jade carving art from the Tang Dynasty and the only one made by using the Qiaose technique (a kind of carving technique that carves a vivid pattern or shape on a small patch in a piece of jade with a different color).
Location: No.91, Xiaozhai East Road, Southern Xi’an
Opening Time: Dec-Feb: 9:00 to 17:30 (closed on Monday); Mar-Nov: 8:30 to 18:00 (closed on Monday)
Ticket Price: Free.
Located at Nongye Road, Zhengzhou, Henan Museum is one of the earliest museums in China. It was built in 1927 and went through several times of relocating and enlarging. The current museum was open to the public in 1998. Most of the cultural relics of the museum came from cities of Henan province, including Shangqiu, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng, and other places. It features many pre-historic antiques, bronze wares from Shang and Zhou dynasties, ceramics, and jade.
Museum Treasure: Rectangular Wine Vessel with Lotus and Crane
It is a wine vessel from the Spring and Autumn Period (c. 771-476 BC). Initially, there were two such vessels unearthed in the Tomb of Duke Zheng in Lijialou, Xinzheng; the other one is collected in the National Palace Museum in Beijing.
Opening Time: Dec-Feb: 9:00 to 17:30 (closed on Monday); Mar-Nov: 8:30 to 18:00 (closed on Monday)
Hubei Provincial Museum is the only comprehensive museum in Hubei. It was open to the public in 2007. The exterior of the museum is a pseudo classic architecture in the shape of "品," and it is composed of permanent exhibition halls, Chu Culture Hall, and many temporary exhibition halls. There are about 200,000 pieces of cultural relics covering bronze wares, calligraphy and painting works, wood lacquer wares, jade, gold and silver wares, ceramics, and many more.
Museum Treasure: Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng
It is a set of percussion instruments unearthed in the Tomb of Duke Zeng (a duke in Warring States Period (c.475-221)) in Suixian county in 1978. Its discovery has changed the understanding of world music, and the instrument itself broke a lot of records.
Opening Hours: 09:00 -17:00 (closed on Mondays)
Bianzhong Performance: 25min.
March - November: 10:30, 14:00, 15:00 (Tuesdays - Fridays); 10:30, 11:30, 14:00, 15:00 (Saturdays and Sundays);
December - February: 11:00, 15:00 (Tuesdays - Fridays); 11:00, 14:00, 15:00 (Saturdays and Sundays).
Zhejiang Provincial Museum is the largest comprehensive museum in Zhejiang, specializing in collecting the celadon works, calligraphy and paintings, and cultural relics from Hemudu and Liangzhu Cultural Heritage Sites. It has two venues: Gushan Branch and Wulin Branch. The Gushan Branch is located on the southern side of the Gushan Mountain nearby Hangzhou. It’s a characteristic building composed of ten exhibition halls for celadon, coins, furniture, artifacts, and others. While the Wulin Branch is located at the Zone E of the West Lake Cultural Square. It has three floors and five sections of exhibitions, displaying civilization, history, and development of Zhejiang since ancient times.
Museum Treasure: Jade Cong King
It's discovered in Fanshan Tomb of Liangzhu culture. The whole ware is square on the outside and circular on the inside. There are four godly figures carved on the grooves of four sides. Those figures are all with beast face, wearing feather crowns and ride divine beasts. Such kind of simple pattern of human and beast is very common in Jade Cong objects of Liangzhu culture. There are also significantly deformed bird patterns on both sides of the figures.
Opening Hours: 9:00 - 17:00 (closed on Mondays)
Shanxi Provincial Museum is the largest place for collection, protection, study, and exhibition of cultural relics discovered in Shanxi. It has an art collection of over 400,000 pieces, including the relics from Taosi Heritage Site, bronze ware from the Shang dynasty, antiques from Jin and Han, Wei, and Zhao states in Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods.
Treasure of the Museum: Bird-Shaped Container
Unearthed in the Tomb of Duke Jin in Beizhao Village, Qumo County, the Bird-Shaped Container are 39cm in height, 30.5cm in length, and 17.5cm in width. Bird and elephant were the popular animal-shaped patterns in bronze wares of the Western Zhou Dynasty. While this container is composed of one big bird looking back in front, a small bird snuggles on the back of the bird, while the elegant, whose body also serves as the body of the big bird, retracts its head in the rear. It belonged to Xiefu, who was the first Duke of Jin State.
Opening Hours: 9:00 - 17:00 (closed on Mondays)
Add.: No.13, Binhe West Road, Bolin District, Taiyuan.
Entrance ticket: free.
Visiting a museum is a great way to understand the past of a place. On your next trip to China, you must check out some of the museums listed here. You will see a lot of treasures and be amazed!
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