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Explore the region
About Yunnan Provincial Museum
Yunnan Provincial Museum (云南省博物馆), which describes itself as Yunnan's largest general museum, is a national first-grade museum housed since 2015 in a new building on Guangfu Road (广福路) by the Baoxiang River (宝象河) in Guandu District (官渡区), Kunming.
The museum dates its founding to 1911. The provincial government approved a preparatory committee on 23 August 1951, and the museum was formally established in spring 1959. In 1961, on the suggestion of Zhou Enlai (周恩来), it was given a building on Wuyi Road (五一路) that had been going up as Kunming's military museum, and its displays moved there in November 1965. That Soviet-style block in Wuhua District (五华区) has been a Yunnan provincial protected heritage site since 2012. Museum teams have carried out more than a hundred excavations and surveys across the province, including the large digs at the Shizhaishan (石寨山) and Lijiashan (李家山) cemeteries.
The new museum had its ground-breaking ceremony on 31 December 2008; its doors opened to the public on 18 May 2015. Its form takes the "seal" courtyard house (一颗印) of Yunnan tradition and the weathered rock shapes of the Stone Forest (石林), with three floors, about 60,000 m² of floor space and 16,500 m² of galleries.
The collection stood at 230,746 objects or sets in 2024, of which 14,122 are graded precious relics; it takes in bronzes, old coins, ceramics, paintings and calligraphy, rubbings, stamps and crafts. Six permanent galleries run in order from prehistory through the Bronze Age, the Eastern Han to Wei–Jin period, the Tang and Song, and the Yuan, Ming and Qing to modern Yunnan, while a ground-floor hall holds temporary exhibitions. The museum's show on the bronze culture of the Dian kingdom (滇国) won a national top-ten exhibition award in 2007, and its Mosuo (摩梭) exhibition was honoured in 2021.
What to look for
- "Light of Civilisation" (文明之光), the gallery on Bronze Age Yunnan
- A Western Han bronze cowrie container with four oxen and a gilded horseman (西汉四牛鎏金骑士铜贮贝器)
- A bronze cowrie container with a human-sacrifice scene at a pillar (杀人祭柱场面贮贝器)
- A gilded silver garuda set with pearls from the Dali Kingdom (大理国)
- "Land of Wondrous Fragrance" (妙香佛国), the gallery on Buddhist Yunnan under the Tang and Song
- The building itself, modelled on the seal-shaped courtyard house and Stone Forest rock
Location & getting there
Getting to Yunnan Provincial Museum
- Search for 云南省博物馆 with 昆明市 and 官渡区.
Find Yunnan Provincial Museum
云南省博物馆 · 官渡区
No reliable map pin yet: search by the Chinese name.
Sources & visit information
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Opening hours, admission and access arrangements are not covered; confirm current visitor information with the site.
Some facts checked against Wikipedia contributors, "云南省博物馆" · CC BY-SA 4.0.