Kyoto City Museum Search

2.6 million academically-significant specimens supporting a broad range of research fields

This museum houses Kyoto University’s precious collection of approximately 2.6 million academic specimens and educational materials, which the university has collected and studied since its founding. The museum was established to utilize these items in cutting-edge research and educational activities and making the results public. It is one of the largest museums in Japan, covering natural history, cultural history, and technological history. The museum’s collection includes extremely important materials, such as cultural assets and specimens that are rare even from an international perspective, some of which are on permanent display. The museum comprises three exhibition rooms. The natural history exhibition room features earthquake-related specimens, specimens of fossils and primates, specimens of plants and insects from temperate forests, and a diorama named “Forest of Lambir,” which represents a tropical rainforest. The cultural history exhibition room displays Japanese history materials, such as historical documents and maps, stone coffins, and archaeological materials related to ancient Japanese culture and East Asia. The technological history exhibition room introduces the history of Kyoto University by tracing to the former Third Higher School and the early days of the university, as well as exhibiting numerous models of machine mechanisms that were used as teaching materials at those times.