Henan National Museum

• Location: Nongye Road, Jinshui District, Zhengzhou, Henan
• Highlights: prehistorical relics, bronze ware of Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, jade ware and porcelain of the various dynasties in Chinese history, and music show featuring mock ancient Chinese instruments thousands of years ago.

Henan Museum, built in 1927, is one of the oldest and largest museums in China. Its site changed for several times and finally lies at Nongye Road, Jinshui District, Zhengzhou, Henan. It is a history and art museum with a collection of more than 130,000 pieces of cultural relics through the ages, of which more than 5,000 pieces are treasures of the first and second grades. They are rich in contents, presenting a spectacular sight to visitors.

Henan Museum was once called Henan Provincial Museum and gained the present name at 1997. It occupies an area of more than 100,000 square meters, with a total floor space of 78,000 square meters. The main exhibition hall is located at the center in the shape of an enormous filemot pyramid. Behind it is a storeroom for culture relics, around it there are the electrified education building, combined service building, office building and training building.

The constructed Museum sight is grandiose and precise, displaying primitive simplicity and elegance. It features the artistic style and culture of central China.

The exhibition halls of the museum mainly consist of three parts, namely basic exhibition halls, specialized exhibition halls and provisional exhibition halls. The basic exhibition halls display the historical and cultural relics discovered throughout Henan Province during the period from prehistory to Ming and Qing Dynasty.

It presents that Henan is the cradle of China’s civilization. The special exhibition halls feature special exhibitions of bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and pottery and porcelain wares of the various dynasties in Chinese history possess most distinguishing features, stone carvings and treasures of Ming and Qing dynasties.

The museum also organizes regular exchange programs with foreign and domestic museums and some wonderful temporary exhibits make their way here.

An Audio Tour Guide is available in Chinese, Japanese and English. Interactive video shows and computer consultancy services are also available. A music show featuring mock ancient Chinese instruments thousands of years ago is on stage at the museum. It is interesting and worth a tour.