China Coal Museum 中国煤炭博物馆

About China Coal Museum

China Coal Museum (中国煤炭博物馆) is in Taiyuan (太原), Shanxi, where Jinci Road (晋祠路) meets Yingze Dajie (迎泽大街), in Wanbailin District (万柏林区). China National Radio describes it as the country's first and only national-level coal museum.

The museum began as a plan of the national coal ministry. In February 1982 the Shanxi Mining Institute (山西矿业学院), forerunner of Taiyuan University of Technology (太原理工大学), put that plan to the provincial Party committee, which approved it that July. Ground was broken in May 1985. When money ran short, the ministry put the provincial coal administration in charge of the project in 1988, and the museum opened in 1989. It was handed from the ministry to Shanxi province in 1998, and in 2008 it was named in the first batch of national first-grade museums. The name over the main gate was written by Bo Yibo (薄一波).

The museum proper occupies the east courtyard, which covers where China's coal lies and how it forms; for many years the university used the west courtyard as a campus. In the 4D motion theatre, a reconstructed Jurassic forest with silicified wood and a standard rock sequence shows plant matter piling up to become coal. The Coal and Humanity hall displays Neolithic objects carved from jet. A reconstructed Han-dynasty ironworks shows a furnace charged with ore and coal, worked by bellows.

Below ground is a simulated mine of 3,200 m², which China National Radio calls the largest in Asia. Its galleries move from old workings lit by small oil lamps and ventilated only by natural draught to modern faces with fans and electric light. Another display, a case nearly 2 m high, lists dozens of products made from coal tar, from dyes and plastics to fertiliser and mothballs.

What to look for

• The 4D motion theatre with a reconstructed Jurassic coal forest and silicified wood
• Neolithic jet carvings in the Coal and Humanity hall
• The reconstructed Han-dynasty ironworks fired with coal
• The 3,200 m² underground simulated mine, from oil-lamp workings to modern faces
• The case of coal-tar products, from dyes to mothballs
• The main gate, its name written by Bo Yibo (薄一波)

Location & getting there

Getting to China Coal Museum

• Search for 中国煤炭博物馆 with 太原市 and 万柏林区.