Natural History Museum

Note please: Due to renovations Natural History Museum is closed till 2008.

The Natural History Museum is located in the very center of Helsinki, close to the Parliament. The museum's building erected in 1913 is remarkable among the tourists and the guests of the city due to the muse statue placed in front of its main entrance.

The Natural History Museum is one of three national museums of Finland. It was founded to collect botanical, zoological, paleontological and geological patterns from every corner of the world. The museum's collections serve not only scientific but also educational goals. The Natural History Museum is divided into four parts: a zoological museum, a geological museum, a botanical museum and a botanical garden.

The permanent exhibition of the Natural History Museum includes several parts. The Fish section presents sweet water and salt water fish species from all over the world. The Invertebrates section introduces visitors to the diversity of insects' world, while Skeletons and bones section presents skeletons of various mammals. This section boasts with the skeleton of Steller's sea cow, species destroyed by man in 1768. The visitors can also get acquainted with Birds and Mammals sections as far as the History of Life section, which presents a trip over the main phases of evolution.

Minerals, fossils and meteorites are exhibited in the mineralogical study of the geological museum located in the Arppenaum building, Snellmaninkatu Street. The patterns of vegetable - both herbariums and plants - are presented to visitors in the botanic garden in Kaisaniemi.