The Royal Palace is the heart of Foumban and the reason most travellers come. The current three-storey building dates from around 1917 and was designed under Sultan Njoya in a hybrid style that nods to German colonial architecture while keeping recognisably Bamoun proportions. It replaced an earlier palace destroyed during a succession war.
Inside, the museum houses the personal possessions, regalia, and ceremonial objects of eighteen sultans going back to the 14th century — beaded thrones, war drums covered in jawbones, brass pipes, royal cloaks, and the famous double-headed serpent throne. The collection is genuine and atmospheric, and the sultan's family still occupies a wing of the complex. A new museum building opened next door in 2017, shaped like a giant spider-serpent emblem of the dynasty, and now displays the bulk of the royal treasures.