Northeast China (东北) · 14 museums · 3 provinces
14 museums in Northeast China, grouped by province. 10 of them are closed on Monday. The last column also says whether entry is free and whether a booking is needed.
Most common here: Memorial hall (6), General collection (5), Single-subject museum (2). See all regions, or the background on museums.
6 museums
Liaoning (辽宁省)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Lüshun Museum (旅顺博物馆)Built by the Japanese administration in 1917 and renamed in 1954; the building is itself protected. A hundred thousand items, with a strong Xinjiang holding, coins, and Japanese painting alongside local excavation. | Dalian | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Liaoshen Campaign Memorial Hall (辽沈战役纪念馆)Covers the Liaoshen campaign of September to November 1948, the first of the three decisive campaigns of the civil war. The panorama hall, credited as the first built in China, shows the taking of Jinzhou in 360 degrees. | Jinzhou | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Liaoning Provincial Museum (辽宁省博物馆)Founded in July 1949, the first museum of the People’s Republic. Strong on Hongshan culture and Liao art: the jade pig-dragon, an early dragon form, and a Hongshan clay female head with jade-inlaid eyes. | Shenyang | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Marshal Zhang’s Mansion Museum (张氏帅府博物馆)The compound of Zhang Zuolin and his son Zhang Xueliang, begun in 1914 and the political centre of the northeast in its day. Chinese courtyards in the middle, with the Green Mansion where Zhang Xueliang worked to the east. | Shenyang | Ticketed |
| September 18th History Museum (“九·一八”历史博物馆)Covers the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931 and the invasion that followed. The front of the building is a stone desk calendar left open at that date. | Shenyang | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum (沈阳故宫博物院)The early Qing palace, begun in 1625 and used by Nurhaci, Hong Taiji and the Shunzhi emperor: 114 buildings on six hectares. One of the two imperial palace complexes still standing in China. | Shenyang | Ticketed · book ahead |
4 museums
Heilongjiang (黑龙江省)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Daqing Museum (大庆博物馆)Holds a collection of Quaternary mammal fossils from the northeast described as the country’s largest, among them a mammoth skeleton, a woolly rhinoceros and a herd of steppe bison, alongside the history of the Daqing oilfield. | Daqing | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Heilongjiang Provincial Museum (黑龙江省博物馆)Founded in 1923 and listed as the largest museum in Heilongjiang, with 110,000 items covering the Bohai kingdom, the Jin dynasty, the Qing and the modern province. A seated bronze dragon from the Jin capital at Acheng is its emblem. | Harbin | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Unit 731 Crime Evidence Exhibition Hall (侵华日军第七三一部队罪证陈列馆)The site of the Japanese army’s biological warfare research and production base, recorded as the largest built anywhere. The new hall opened in 2015, half sunk into the ground. Free, but booking under a real name is required; new hall first, then the ruins. | Harbin | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Aihui Historical Museum (瑷珲历史陈列馆)Covers the Treaty of Aigun of 1858, under which the Qing ceded the land north of the Amur, and the killings at Blagoveshchensk in 1900. Built on the site of the Qing garrison town that administered the river. | Heihe | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
4 museums
Jilin (吉林省)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Changchun Film Studio Museum (长影旧址博物馆)The first film studio of the People’s Republic, on the site of a company founded in 1945. Its firsts are on show: the first feature, the first puppet film, the first animation, and the first foreign picture dubbed into Chinese. | Changchun | Ticketed |
| Jilin Provincial Museum (吉林省博物院)Ranked the largest museum in Jilin, 120,000 items, organised around Goguryeo, the Bohai kingdom, the Liao and Jin, Manchu culture, and the resistance in the northeast. | Changchun | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Museum of the Imperial Palace of Manchukuo (伪满皇宫博物院)Puyi’s court as puppet emperor of Manchukuo, kept as it stood: his living quarters, his office, and the hall that combined both. The narrative is the fourteen years he spent in Changchun under Japanese control. | Changchun | Ticketed · book ahead |
| Jilin City Museum (吉林市博物馆（吉林陨石博物馆）)Built around the meteorite shower of 8 March 1976, the largest stony meteorite fall on record. The main mass, at 1,770 kg, is the heaviest single stony meteorite known, and the material is 4.6 billion years old. | Jilin City | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
Getting In
Most of these are free and most of them want a booking, made on a Chinese platform a day or several ahead, and the good ones sell out in the school holidays. Tell our local team which cities you will be in and they will handle the bookings and say which halls are worth the time.