National Museum of China

The National Museum of China is an absolute MUST for any Beijing itinerary. Be aware: **you MUST book tickets online in advance** (book as early as possible!). To truly appreciate the sheer scale and priceless treasures inside, **arrive as early as possible when it opens**. You'll avoid the massive crowds and have a much more peaceful, enjoyable experience exploring China's most significant cultural relics, spanning thousands of years. Highly recommended for visitors from all over the world!

Huge and wide-ranging museum, front ancient history to modern technologies and even some CCP artifacts. Book tickets on the website or WeChat 7 days before at 8pm Beijing time exactly. Tickets book out in minutes. Enter at the north side of the museum, DO NOT enter Tiananmen square security as it's a separate entrance. You'll exit the museum directly into Tiananmen square, so see that (or the forbidden City) after your museum visit. There's a few vending machines and cafes inside, the one in the basement is the cheapest. There's also filtered water dispensers for bottles only. I spent 6 hours here, could have spent much more!

A pretty big museum show casing much of Chinese ancient and recent history. However I felt that it was a little lackluster in terms of interesting things. Good news is once you exit here you can check out the tiananmen plaza so you don’t need to come a second time to visit the plaza.

Before planing my visit, a friend warned me this spot is popular with tourists, so I came with my low expectation… and honestly, it still felt overwhelming. The moment I got off the train, it was chaos—long queues, security checks (three times, from train to the entrance), and some seriously impatient staff. Not the chill experience I hoped for. 🤯 If you’re planning to come, pack your patience and maybe a podcast for the wait. 🤞🏻Good luck!

Enormous museum with more than just the culture an history of China. For most foreigners the basement is the most interesting floor to visit which displays the history from 20.000 years ago till recent.

Place itself was huge and showed a great deal of China’s history. Spent 2h-3h there but still didn’t complete. Had fun with stamps. We had booked tickets two days ago for the 11am slot but I highly recommend going for an earlier one. Somehow the didi driver dropped us a road away from the museum at 10.55am, and we were turned away from 2 other entrances? By the time we entered, it was 11.40am. Insane. It’s better if you head to other places instead. If you want to go, make sure to bring loads of food. Can try public transport.

FABULOUS MUSEUM AND ANOTHER MUST VISIT.....HOWEVER !!!! I strongly recommend to everyone to get a phone translator, as when I was present there, there were sections where only the Chinese language was used and I could prehaps see the beautiful exposition, however I couldn't get any meaningful informations. It is rather large, so you could easily spend half a day there, or even a full day if you are heavily into China history. I give 4 stars instead of 5, because getting tickets was rather confusing and if I recall well, they took our passports and gave them later back with free tickets (I have no clue if Chinese pay, or foreigners, we just got it back and that was that), not to mention that Chinese que's are not very well organized, so it was rather messy. Apart from getting the tickets and some sections being solely in Chinese, it was rather enjoyable. Located in absolute center it's once again a must.

If you like history, this is probably one of the best museums to visit in Beijing. The admission is free but you have to reserve tickets through a mini app on WeChat. It could be difficult to get tickets. They release new tickets every day at 5 pm. The best one was the Ancient China exhibition, but the line could also get extremely long. You’d better visit it either in the morning or late before their closing time. There were also plenty of temporary exhibitions. You could expect to spend at least 3 hours here.