The Museum of Natural History

The Museum of Natural History

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Area：Carinthian Street / St. Stephe Sightseeing　Genre： Museums

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Museums

One of the best natural history museums in Vienna!

The Museum of Natural History is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. The museum's website provides an overview in the form of a virtual tour.

The museum's earliest collections of artifacts were begun over 250 years ago. Today, its collections on display cover 8,700 square metres(94,000 sq ft).

As of 2011, the museum houses approximately 30 million objects and the number is growing. Behind the scenes, collections comprising some 25 million specimens and artefacts are the essential basis for the work of over 60 staff scientists. Their main fields of research cover a wide range of topics from the origins of our Solar system and the evolution of animals and plants to human evolution, as well as prehistoric traditions and customs.

Building

The main building of the Museum is an elaborate palace that has accommodated these constantly growing collections, since opening to the public in 1889 as the Imperial Natural History Museum. However, some of the collections had been moved from even older buildings, such as the Hofbibliothek which contained the Zoology Cabinet collections.
Famous and irreplaceable exhibits – for instance, the 25,000 year-old Venus of Willendorf, a skeleton of a Diplodocus dinosaur and specimens of long-extinct lifeforms such as Steller's sea cow – are displayed across thirty-nine halls. A contemporary presentation of the exhibits, using modern exhibition technology, has been possible without any destruction of the building's historical structures.

Floors

On the upper floor precious stones, minerals and meteorites can be seen, along with large dinosaur displays and rare fossils, and along with prehistoric art works: the Venus von Willendorf, the skeleton of Diplodocus, a giant topaz crystal weighing 117 kg, and the gemstone-and-diamond bouquet of flowers which Maria Theresia had made as a present for her husband.
The first floor displays the species variety of the animal world, from protozoa to insects to highly developed mammals. Objects over 200 years old are of interest, not only on their own account but also as historical records for the history of science and the art of taxidermy: numerous stuffed animals of species either extinct, or extremely endangered, have made the collections irreplaceable.

General Information

Name	The Museum of Natural History
Address	Maria-Theresien-Platz, 1010, Wien
Tel	(01)52177
ＨＰ	www.nhm-wien.ac.at
Opening Hours	thursday - monday:9 a.m - 6.30 p.m., wednesday 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Closed	Tuesdays
Admissions	Adults:€ 10, Children and youth under 19:free
Access	2 minutes walk from Dr-Karl-Renner-Ring station