Nanjing Museum

The Nanjing Museum (南京博物院) is the second-largest museum in China and one of the finest. Founded in 1933, it occupies a complex of several buildings at the foot of Purple Mountain, near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. The permanent collections span Chinese history from the Neolithic through the 20th century, with exceptional holdings in bronzes, ceramics, jade, and silk.

Particularly strong are the exhibition on Jiangsu and Yangtze River Delta culture, the jade burial suit from the Han dynasty, and the Republican-era wing, which recreates a 1930s Nanjing street scene in vivid detail. A separate digital art museum occupies one of the newer buildings. Admission is free (passport required). Allow at least half a day for the main museum, more if you want to see everything.

things to do museum
A story
The museum's Republican-era building — a grand structure completed in 1933 in a hybrid Chinese-Western style — was designed to embody the new Chinese nation. The design deliberately recalled the palace architecture of imperial China while using Western structural techniques, a visual argument that China could be both modern and rooted. The building alone is worth the visit even before you get to the collections.