The National Natural History Museum of China

The National Natural History Museum of China
国家自然博物馆

Address: 126 South Tianqiao Street, Dongcheng district, Beijing
Websites:www.nnhm.org.cn/en/(En)
www.nnhm.org.cn/(Cn)
Hours: 9:00-17:00 (last entry at 16:00)
Closed Mondays (except national holidays)
E-mail: nnhmoffice@nnhm.org.cn
General admission fee: Free (passport required for entry)
Ticket booking: yuyue.nnhm.org.cn (24 hours)
(+86-10)67027702 (9:00-16:00)

The Beijing Natural History Museum was the first large-scale natural history museum in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The main building was inaugurated in May 1958 and inscribed by Guo Moruo, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at that time, and opened in January 1959. In January 2023, the name was changed to the National Natural History Museum. The opening ceremony of the National Natural History Museum of China was held on June 5, 2023.

It is a large natural history museum focusing on specimen collection, research and education in the fields of paleontology, animals, plants and anthropology.

After decades of development, the museum now houses a collection of more than 370,000 zoological and other specimens. Permanent displays can be found in the Halls of Paleontology, Zoology, Botany and Mankind Evolution. Its spacious galleries contain some fine specimens of fossils, including various invertebrates, mammals, early humans, reptiles, dinosaur skeletons and eggs excavated in China. It also contains a large collection of minerals, as well as a fantastic display of naturally carved and polished stones used in the traditional Chinese art of miniature rockery.

The Hall of Paleontology features fossil remains from the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic ages, forming a wordless chronicle of prehistoric life that flourished between 1 and 500 million years ago. Among the exhibits is a 140 million year-old 22-meter Mamenxi dinosaur fossil, a flying Yi dinosaur and a swimming Yu dinosaur. The Hall of Zoology and the Hall of Botany display various species that demonstrate the long course of biological evolution. The Hall of the Origins of Mankind reveals how human beings stemmed from earlier life forms.