Best Museums in China

The Terracotta Army is the museum most people come to China for, and it lives up to it. Farmers digging a well in 1974 found the first fragments; the excavated pits now hold thousands of soldiers, each with an individual face, plus horses, chariots and archers, guarding the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, who unified China in 221 BC. Pit 1 is the famous hangar with the ranks of infantry in formation; Pits 2 and 3 are smaller and still partly excavated, and a separate hall shows the two bronze chariots found near the tomb mound.

The site is about an hour east of Xi’an. Take metro line 9 to Huaqingchi and a short bus or taxi, or the tourist bus from the east square of Xi’an railway station. The ticket, about 120 yuan (around $17), also covers the emperor’s burial mound park nearby, with a shuttle between them. Allow three to four hours, arrive at opening, and book tickets ahead in summer and holidays. Avoid the touts and unlicensed guides at the station who offer cheap “tours” that end in shops.

In the city, the Shaanxi History Museum holds one of China’s best collections, from Zhou bronzes to Tang dynasty gold and tomb murals. It has been through a long renovation, with parts of the collection shown at its newer Qin-Han branch west of the city, so check what is open before you go. The Stele Forest (Beilin), by the south city wall, is a museum of carved stone tablets including classic calligraphy and the Nestorian Stele that records Christianity in Tang China. Near the airport, the Han Yang Ling tomb museum lets you walk on glass over pits of small Han dynasty figurines.

The Palace Museum, housed in the Forbidden City, is a palace you walk through rather than a gallery: 600 years of imperial halls, courtyards and gardens, entered from the Meridian Gate in the south and left through the Gate of Divine Prowess in the north. The ticket is about 60 yuan from April to October and 40 yuan in winter, with small extra charges for the Treasure Gallery and the Clock Gallery, both worth it. Tickets are sold online only, with a daily cap, and they open about a week ahead; in summer and holidays they sell out. It is closed on Mondays except public holidays. Allow at least half a day.

Across Tiananmen Square, the National Museum of China is one of the largest museums in the world, and its Ancient China galleries run from Neolithic jade to Qing porcelain in a single sweep. Entry is free with a booking. The Capital Museum on Chang’an Avenue is less crowded and very good on bronzes, porcelain and old Beijing life.

For something different, the National Art Museum of China shows modern Chinese painting, the Military Museum has tanks, jets and missiles in its halls, and the Paleozoological Museum and Geological Museum have dinosaur fossils from China’s rich beds. The 798 Art District in the north-east, a former factory complex, is Beijing’s contemporary art quarter, with galleries including the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art.

The Shanghai Museum on People’s Square, in a building shaped like an ancient bronze cooking vessel, is the best place in China to see Chinese art laid out clearly, with strong English labelling. Its bronze, ceramics, calligraphy, painting and furniture galleries each take an hour on their own. Entry is free. A second, larger branch, the Shanghai Museum East, opened in Pudong in 2024.

The city also does modern art better than anywhere else in the country. The China Art Museum fills the giant red China Pavilion from Expo 2010, and the Power Station of Art, in a converted power plant by the river, was the country’s first state-run contemporary art museum and hosts the Shanghai Biennale. Along the West Bund in Xuhui, a riverside walk links private museums in former industrial buildings, including the Long Museum and the Yuz Museum.

Other good picks: the Shanghai Natural History Museum in Jing’an Sculpture Park, the Urban Planning Exhibition Center with its scale model of the whole city (check it is open before you go), and the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum in the Ohel Moshe synagogue in Hongkou, which tells the story of the Jews who found refuge in the city in the 1930s and 1940s. The site of the First Party Congress is in Xintiandi.

The Suzhou Museum, opened in 2006, was designed by I.M. Pei, who grew up partly in Suzhou: white walls, grey stone and a rock garden made from slices of stone against a wall, a modern take on the city’s classical gardens next door. It is free with a booking and closed on Mondays, and it sits beside the Humble Administrator’s Garden, so combine them.

The Nanjing Museum in Nanjing is one of the country’s big three, with a huge collection and a Republic of China hall that recreates a 1930s street. The Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre is a sober, essential visit; it is free, closed on Mondays and needs a booking.

In Hangzhou, the Zhejiang Provincial Museum sits on Solitary Hill in West Lake, the China National Silk Museum is a short walk from the lake, and the China National Tea Museum is out among the Longjing tea plantations. All three are free. North of the city, the Liangzhu Museum shows the Neolithic jades of the Liangzhu culture, whose ruins are a World Heritage site.

The Sanxingdui Museum, about an hour north of Chengdu near Guanghan, is the most startling museum in China. The Sanxingdui culture, unknown until sacrificial pits were found in 1986, made bronzes unlike anything else in Chinese art: masks with protruding eyes and huge ears, a standing figure over 2.5 m tall, and bronze trees with birds on the branches. More pits opened between 2020 and 2022 added hundreds of objects, and a new main building opened in 2023. Allow half a day and book ahead on weekends.

In Chengdu, the Jinsha site museum is built over a related excavation and holds the gold Sun and Immortal Birds disc, now the emblem of Chinese cultural heritage. The Du Fu Thatched Cottage is a garden museum to the Tang poet. In Chongqing, the Three Gorges Museum faces the Great Hall of the People and covers the Yangtze and the dam, with a good hall of Han dynasty reliefs.

Every provincial capital has a large, free museum, and a handful are good enough to plan a stop around:

• Hunan Museum, Changsha: the finds from the Mawangdui Han tombs, including the remarkably preserved body of Lady Xin Zhui, painted silk banners and a silk gauze robe that weighs under 50 g.
• Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan: the 2,400-year-old bronze chime bells of Marquis Yi of Zeng, with short concerts on replica bells, and the Sword of Goujian, still sharp.
• Henan Museum, Zhengzhou: bronzes and ceramics from the heartland of early Chinese dynasties, close to Luoyang and the Longmen Grottoes.
• Gansu Provincial Museum, Lanzhou: the bronze Galloping Horse treading on a swallow, and Silk Road finds; continue west to the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang.
• Xinjiang Regional Museum, Urumqi: the desert-preserved mummies of the Tarim Basin.
• Tibet Museum, Lhasa: thangka paintings, ritual objects and manuscripts, near the Norbulingka.
• Inner Mongolia Museum, Hohhot: dinosaur skeletons and the history of the steppe peoples.
• Guangdong Museum, Guangzhou: a black box of a building in Zhujiang New Town with Cantonese crafts; across town, the Nanyue King’s tomb museum has a jade burial suit.
• Museum of the Imperial Palace of Manchukuo, Changchun: the palace of Puyi, the last emperor, as puppet ruler for Japan.

For the cave temples and ruins themselves, see historic sites in China.

Booking is the main hurdle. Free museums still issue timed tickets, usually through the museum’s own website or WeChat mini-program. Register with your passport number exactly as printed and show the passport at the gate; a photo of it will not do. Slots usually open a few days to a week ahead, and some museums keep a small number of same-day tickets for foreign visitors at a separate window, but do not count on it in July, August, the first week of May or Golden Week from 1 October.

Expect airport-style security at the entrance. Lighters, knives and large bags are refused, some museums limit drinks, and lockers are not always available, so travel light. Most museums open around 9am, stop admitting visitors an hour before closing, and close on Mondays, except when Monday is a public holiday. English labels are good in Beijing, Shanghai and the big provincial museums and patchy elsewhere; the official audio guide or the museum’s own app is usually worth the rental.