The country's largest museum: four floors of history, natural history, Liberation War and world civilisation galleries in the heart of Dhaka.
The Bangladesh National Museum is the country’s national collection, established on 20 March 1913 as the Dhaka Museum and opened to the public the following year with fewer than 400 objects. After independence it was renamed, and the present four-storey building at Shahbagh opened to visitors on 17 November 1983.
The collection is arranged across five departments: History and Classical Art, Ethnology and Decorative Arts, Contemporary Art and World Civilisation, Natural History, and a Conservation Laboratory. Highlights include Buddhist sculpture from the Gandhara period and a numismatic collection of more than 50,000 ancient and medieval coins.
The first floor holds natural history and historical galleries, the second floor is devoted to the Liberation War, and the third floor houses international galleries presented by China, Korea, Iran and Switzerland.
Tickets can be bought at the gate or online. Ticket sales stop about 30 minutes before closing, so arrive in good time.
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