Chengdu Museum

Chinese Name: 成都市博物馆 (Cheng Du Shi Bo Wu Guan)
Location: No.1, Xiaohe Street, Qingyang District, Chengdu, Sichuan Province
Ticket: Free
Estimated tour time: 2-3 hours
Recommended time to visit: All year round.
Nearby attractions: Wide&Narrow Alleys, People’s Park, Jinli Street, Wuhou Temple, Chunxi Road, Qingyang Temple, etc.

Founded on September 15, 1958, Chengdu Museum has gone through several stages of development, including the Preparatory Committee of Chengdu Geographic Records Museum, Chengdu Cultural Relics Management Office, Chengdu Museum and Chengdu Museum. At the end of 2015, the Chengdu Museum was established with the approval of the organization Office of the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee and was officially opened to the public on September 15, 2016 as a comprehensive museum.

Chengdu Museum is located on the west side of Tianfu Square in downtown Chengdu, covers an area of about 11,333 square meters with a total construction area of about 65,000 square meters. The main building is divided into the south building and the north building: on the ground of the south building is the office and research area and the basement is the academic lecture hall (multi-function hall). 

The north building is mainly a display area. The first floor is the lobby, screening hall and the special exhibition hall. Special exhibition on human and nature topics is on the ground floor. The second and third floors is Chengdu's historical and cultural exhibition of ancient times. The fourth floor is exhibition of the modern times and folklores. The fifth floor is for the Chinese shadow puppets exhibition. The total exhibition area is nearly 20,000 square meters. 

On September 22, 2020, Chengdu Museum was awarded the 17th China Civil Engineering Zhan Tianyou Award. In December 2020, it was listed in the fourth batch of national first class museums. In December 2020, it was awarded the title of 2019-2020 energy saving public institution demonstration unit.

● Four exhibitions of Chengdu Museum

Historical and Cultural Exhibition of Chengdu (Ancient Times)

Located on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Chengdu Museum, the exhibition is divided into four exhibitions: Chengdu in the Pre Qin Period(Paleolithic Age to 221BC)

221BC), Chengdu in the Qin, Han and Southern and Northern Dynasties, Chengdu in the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, Song and Yuan Dynasties(221BC-1279AD) and Chengdu in the Ming and Qing Dynasties(1368-1912).

Historical and Cultural Exhibition of Chengdu (Modern Times)

It is located on the 4th floor of Chengdu Museum. After the mid-19th century, Chinese society experienced unprecedented social changes during which Chengdu played an irreplaceable role: an important source of the Railway Protection Movement, the strategic town in the rear area of the Anti-Japanese War and a major battlefield for the liberation of the southwest China. These three monuments will forever be recorded in the century old history of modern China.

Historical and Cultural Exhibition of Chengdu (Folklore)

It is located on the 4th floor of Chengdu Museum. The display is divided into four sections: street, food, tour and teahouse, connecting life folk customs, production folk customs, social organization folk customs, festival folk customs, life rites, folk beliefs, folk art and other contents.

Chinese Shadow Play Exhibition

The exhibition includes shadow puppets, sculpting tools, shadow rolls, musical instruments and video materials of folk artists' performances. There is also a leather base, shadow puppet carving class and shadow puppet performance team. The shadow play, a living folk performing art is systematically, completely and properly protected in the form of a museum.

Chinese Puppet Show

Located in the north of the 5th floor exhibition hall of Chengdu Museum, it covers an area of more than 400 square meters with more than 200 exhibits. The exhibition traces the history of Chinese puppets, focusing on the distribution and characteristics of the popular thread puppet show, stick head puppet show, iron branch puppet show, cloth bag show and pole show, as well as the development of puppet show and plastic arts and the development of the production and performance artists who inherited and created art.

Human and Nature

Located on the first underground floor of Chengdu Museum, this exhibition is the first nature theme exhibition since the establishment of the museum. It displays more than 300 animal specimens, showing the characteristics and stories of diverse species and ecosystems on different continents and elaborating the relationship between human and nature.

Collection of cultural relics

Chengdu Museum has a total collection of nearly 200,000 pieces, forming a relatively complete collection sequence from the Neolithic Age to the Republic of China, covering bronzes wares, gold and silver wares, picture bricks, stone carvings, ceramics, calligraphy and paintings, furnitures, shadow puppets, puppets, Taoist paintings, masks, wood carvings, etc.