National Museum of Natural History

National Museum of Natural History
View of the main facade from Madison Drive
Map
Established1910 (1910)
LocationNational Mall in Washington, D.C., United States
Coordinates38°53′29″N 77°01′33″W / 38.8913°N 77.0259°W / 38.8913; -77.0259
TypeNatural history museum
Collection size146,000,000 specimens [1]
Visitors
  • 4,400,000 (2023)[2]
  • 573,000 (2020) [3]
  • 4,200,000 (2019) [4]
  • 4,800,000 (2018) [5]
DirectorKirk Johnson
Employees427 [1]
Public transit access at Federal Triangle
Websitenaturalhistory.si.edu

The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 million visitors in 2023, it was the third most-visited museum in the United States.[6]

Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities.[7] The main building has an overall area of 1.5 million square feet (140,000 m2) with 325,000 square feet (30,200 m2) of exhibition and public space and houses over 1,000 employees.[7]

The museum's collections contain over 146 million specimens[8] of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, the largest natural history collection in the world.[9] It is also home to about 185 professional natural history scientists—the largest group of scientists dedicated to the study of natural and cultural history in the world.

  1. ^ a b "Media Fact Sheet". February 14, 2019. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  2. ^ "Visitor Stats". SI. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  3. ^ TEA/AECOM (September 2021). TEA/AECOM 2020 Theme Index and Museum Index: The Global Attractions Attendance Report (PDF) (Report). Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). p. 87.
  4. ^ TEA/AECOM (July 2020). TEA/AECOM 2019 Theme Index and Museum Index: The Global Attractions Attendance Report (PDF) (Report). Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). p. 93.
  5. ^ TEA/AECOM (May 2019). TEA/AECOM 2018 Theme Index and Museum Index: The Global Attractions Attendance Report (PDF) (Report). Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). p. 37.
  6. ^ [1]TEA-AECOM Museum Index for 2022, published June 2023
  7. ^ a b "Research & Collections". National Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. Retrieved April 12, 2012.
  8. ^ "Collections at the National Museum of Natural History". National Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on February 6, 2019. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  9. ^ Johnson, Kirk (March 2, 2019). "Smithsonian Museum and Zoo records the natural world as it collides with human civilisation" (Interview). Interviewed by Robyn Williams. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on February 26, 2020. Retrieved February 26, 2020.

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