The Dinosaur Museum together with the American National Dinosaur Park and the Canadian Dinosaur Park are the world's three largest dinosaur museums. The Chinese site lies near Da Shanpu County in the east north suburbs of Zigong City of Sichuan Province. It is the first modern specialized dinosaur museum in China to be set up on the "Da Shanpu dinosaur fossils group site", which is called the "Dinosaur Cemetery". At present, it is the largest and the only dinosaur museum in Asia located at an actual fossil burial site. It has been named the "East Dragon". The Zigong Dinosaur Museum has the world's largest collection of dinosaur fossils from the mid-Jurassic period.
Since its completion and opening in 1987, with its rare fossil specimens, magnificent fossil burial locale, simple and elegant building style, and unique garden view, the Zigong Dinosaur Museum has become world renowned in the field of museums and tour gardens. It has been named as "One of the forty best and most famous Chinese scenic tour sites" by the Chinese national tour bureau.
The city of Zigong in Sichuan Province is well known as a center for the production of salt and also as an important discovery area of Dinosaur fossils in China. The earth in this area formed during the Jurassic period (135 million years to 210 million years ago) is easily accessible. The dinosaur fossils were buried in the earth of early and mid Jurassic. Dinosaur fossils from this period are not often found anywhere else in the world so dinosaur fossils from the Zigong area offer abundant and key source materials for scientists to study specimens from this era.
According to geological investigation, the soil layers from the Jurassic period located around Zigong were originally formed from a wide area near a lake. The climate was tropical and humid; aquatic grass was plentiful and luxuriant; and trees were tall. It was an ideal place for dinosaurs to live. In Da Shanpu, the area was a calm sand shoal. The dinosaurs that died here and also those from considerable distance upriver here were carried by the river and buried by mud and sand in the shoal. Over millions of years, a large number of dinosaur specimens accumulated in the shoal. Then over a period of 100 to 200 million years of this accumulation, the layers of sandstone containing the fossils that we see today were finally formed.
The exterior of the Zigong Dinosaur Museum appears as a huge rock hole but is spectacular and beautiful. It was built along the example of other large-scale specialized locale museums such as the Xi'an Banpo Village Remains Museum and the Museum of the Qin Terra CottaWarriors and Horses. The Zigong Museum covers an area of 25,000 square meters with a display area of 3600 square meters located on three floors. The display is primarily focused on the dinosaur fossils excavated from Da Shanpu.
The museum offers a show feature which is divided into the following three parts: The first part focuses on introducing basic knowledge concerning dinosaurs, such as the evolution of current animals and creatures, fossils, the various geological eras, and the development and types of dinosaurs.
The second part introduces all of the various types of dinosaur fossils found in Da Shanpu. The entire exhibition is displayed in a high and spacious hall. Here there are several completely intact skeletons of dinosaurs from the era. The third part describes the site of the dinosaur fossils. This allows tourists to see an actual excavation site.
The display halls include the first hall, a specimens display hall, a fossils excavation area hall, a central hall, a curiosity hall, the display hall describing the history of construction of the museum, and an area describing what the prehistoric world was really like.