Three Gorges Museum

The Three Gorges Museum occupies a striking modernist building opposite the People's Auditorium in central Chongqing. Its four floors trace the history and culture of the Three Gorges region — the stretch of the Yangtze between Chongqing and Yichang that was forever altered by the dam project completed in 2006.

The collection is exceptional. It includes ancient Ba culture bronzes and ceramics, artefacts from submerged archaeological sites, and a large exhibition on the history of the river and its people. A gallery on the Anti-Japanese War years, when Chongqing served as China's wartime capital, is particularly strong. Allow two to three hours. Admission is free but you need to register at the entrance with your passport.

things to do museum
A story
When the Three Gorges Dam was completed in 2006, it flooded 1,000 kilometres of the Yangtze valley, submerging 13 cities, 140 towns, and over a thousand villages. More than a million people were relocated. The museum preserves not just artefacts from this lost landscape but photographs and oral histories from communities that no longer exist — a record of the world's largest forced migration of modern times.