Southwest China (西南) · 26 museums · 5 provinces
26 museums in Southwest China, grouped by province. 16 of them are closed on Monday. The last column also says whether entry is free and whether a booking is needed.
Most common here: General collection (6), Memorial hall (6), Site or tomb museum (5). See all regions, or the background on museums.
9 museums
Tibet (西藏自治区)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Gendun Chopel Museum (根敦群培纪念馆)The house where the poet and translator Gendun Chopel died in 1951, in one of the old Barkhor courtyards. Around four hundred items, including manuscripts and the things he used. | Lhasa | Free |
| Potala Palace Treasure Gallery (布达拉宫珍宝馆（雪城）)In Shol village at the foot of the Potala, showing about two hundred pieces from the palace stores: seals, edicts, thangka, scripture and ritual objects. From 2025 it is included with a Potala booking. | Lhasa | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Qing Dynasty Amban Residence Museum (清政府驻藏大臣衙门旧址陈列馆)The Qing amban’s office, set up in 1728 and used by the imperial residents in Lhasa for the next two centuries. The Tibetan courtyard it occupies is on Barkhor Street, and its name means the house that sees the market. | Lhasa | Free |
| Tibetan Medicine Culture Museum (藏医药文化博物馆)Described as China’s only museum devoted to Tibetan medicine, with some 1,500 objects and 27,000 plant specimens. Tibetan medicine is one of the four ethnic medical traditions recognised in China. | Lhasa | Ticketed · book ahead |
| Xizang Museum (西藏博物馆)The regional museum, listed as the only first-grade national museum in Tibet, reopened in 2022 with more than 520,000 items. The standing halls are the usual first stop for making sense of the region. | Lhasa | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Xizang Serfs Emancipation Memorial Hall (西藏百万农奴解放纪念馆)Opened in 2019 on the anniversary of the 1959 emancipation, and moved to a new hall in Lhasa in 2021. About 3,500 square metres on the ending of serfdom and what came after it. | Lhasa | Free · closed Mon |
| Yak Museum of Xizang (西藏牦牛博物馆)Described as the first museum anywhere devoted to the yak, free since 2014. It uses the animal to tell the history of the people whose living depends on it. | Lhasa | Free · closed Mon |
| Guge Kingdom Ruins (古格王朝遗址（托林寺）)The capital of the Guge kingdom, abandoned after seven centuries and spread over about 750,000 square metres. Tholing monastery below it was founded in 996 and is recorded as the first Buddhist temple built in Ngari. | Ngari | Ticketed |
| Shigatse Museum (日喀则博物馆（扎什伦布寺）)The city museum of Shigatse, on the history of Tsang, the Panchen Lama line and the region around it. Tashilhunpo monastery, founded in 1447 and the seat of the Panchen Lamas, stands on the hillside above. | Shigatse | Free |
6 museums
Sichuan (四川省)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Chengdu Museum (成都博物馆)The city museum, on Tianfu Square with a metro exit at the door. Runs from pre-Qin Sichuan through the Tang and Qing, and holds a lacquered figure marked with meridian lines, the earliest such object surviving in China. | Chengdu | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Jinsha Site Museum (成都金沙遗址博物馆)Found in 2001, the Shu centre that followed Sanxingdui, 3,200 to 2,600 years ago. The gold Sun and Immortal Birds disc, 12.5 cm across and 0.02 cm thick, became the national emblem for cultural heritage in 2005. | Chengdu | Ticketed · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Sichuan Museum (四川博物院)Recorded as the largest provincial museum in the southwest, next to Huanhuaxi park. Holds the fullest set of Zhang Daqian’s Dunhuang copies, over two hundred of them, and Han moulded bricks showing hunting, harvest and salt wells. | Chengdu | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Wuhou Shrine Museum (成都武侯祠博物馆)The only shrine in China where a ruler and his minister are honoured together: Liu Bei’s tomb of 223 and Zhuge Liang’s temple were merged in the early Ming. The red-walled lane between bamboo is one of Chengdu’s busiest places for photographs. | Chengdu | Ticketed |
| Sanxingdui Museum (三星堆博物馆)The Shu bronzes: masks, a standing figure 2.62 m tall, and a bronze tree of 3.96 m. Two sacrificial pits were found in 1986 and six more between 2019 and 2022. The new hall opened in 2023. | Deyang | Ticketed · book ahead |
| Zigong Dinosaur Museum (自贡恐龙博物馆)Built directly over the Dashanpu quarry, where Middle Jurassic dinosaurs come out of the ground in unusual concentration. Skeletons are left partly in the rock face; over three hundred crates of fossils have been excavated. | Zigong | Ticketed |
4 museums
Chongqing (重庆市)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| China Three Gorges Museum (重庆中国三峡博物馆)Four floors running from ancient Ba through the wartime capital to the modern city. The Wuyang que, a second-century funerary gate pillar, stands inside the entrance, and a jawbone from Wushan dated about two million years is in the collection. | Chongqing | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Chongqing Natural History Museum (重庆自然博物馆)A hundred and ten thousand specimens, strongest on Mesozoic dinosaurs from the Sichuan basin. The Mamenchisaurus from Hechuan measures 22 metres; the Yangchuanosaurus is counted among the best-preserved carnivores found in China. | Chongqing | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Dazu Rock Carvings Museum (大足石刻博物馆)Carving at Dazu began about 650 and peaked under the Song: some 50,000 figures, later than the northern cave sites and more narrative in manner. The thousand-armed Guanyin at Baoding stands 7.7 metres. | Chongqing | Ticketed |
| Hongyan Revolution History Museum (重庆红岩革命历史博物馆)The wartime offices of the Eighth Route Army in Chongqing and the residence used by the Communist delegation, including the garden where the 1945 agreement with the Nationalists was signed. | Chongqing | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
4 museums
Yunnan (云南省)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Yunnan Military Academy Museum (云南陆军讲武堂历史博物馆)Founded in 1909, one of three Qing military academies and later ranked with Baoding and Whampoa. Zhu De and Ye Jianying both trained here. Four yellow two-storey ranges stand around a drill square. | Kunming | Free · closed Mon |
| Yunnan Nationalities Museum (云南民族博物馆)Listed as the largest ethnographic museum in China, on 200 mu, with more than 10,000 objects in eight themed sections. Yunnan has 25 resident minority peoples, more than any other province. | Kunming | Free · closed Mon |
| Yunnan Provincial Museum (云南省博物馆)230,000 items in a copper-coloured building by Lake Dian. Strong on Dian-kingdom bronzes, the Cuan culture, and the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms. The bronze table with an ox and a tiger is its emblem. | Kunming | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Lijiang Museum (丽江市博物院（东巴文化博物馆）)The collection for Dongba culture: over a thousand Dongba scriptures, painted scrolls, and printing blocks for the Naxi pictographs, the only pictographic script still in use. | Lijiang | Free |
3 museums
Guizhou (贵州省)
| Museum | City | Getting in |
|---|---|---|
| Guizhou Nationalities Museum (贵州民族博物馆)Covers the eighteen peoples native to Guizhou through 10,000 items of dress, instruments and building models, among them a Miao hundred-bird coat and a model of the Zengchong drum tower. | Guiyang | Free · closed Mon |
| Guizhou Provincial Museum (贵州省博物馆)250,000 items along three lines: Triassic fossils, including the Keichousaurus and crinoids; the dress and silver of the Miao, Dong and Bouyei; and material on the Yelang kingdom. | Guiyang | Free · book ahead · closed Mon |
| Zunyi Conference Site Memorial Hall (遵义会议会址纪念馆)The house where the Party leadership met in January 1935, during the Long March, and settled its command. A general’s residence of brick and timber in mixed Chinese and Western style; the meeting room is reconstructed. | Zunyi | 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.