The Jilin Provincial Museum covers the natural and human history of Jilin Province with collections that range from Paleolithic artefacts through the Manchurian kingdoms to the modern era. The natural history sections are particularly strong on the regional geology and the prehistoric fauna of northeast China — this is a landscape with an unusually complete fossil record, and the museum's collections reflect that.
The historical sections cover the full range of cultures that have inhabited Jilin: the various nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples of the pre-Chinese period, the Balhae and Bohai kingdoms, the Jurchen peoples who gave rise to the Manchu dynasty, and the transformation of the region under Qing and Republican rule. The perspective is broader than standard Han-centric Chinese history, and the coverage of the non-Chinese peoples who built kingdoms and empires here gives the collections unusual depth.
The museum has been rebuilt and expanded in recent years and the facility is modern and well-organised.