Introduction
Yunnan Nationalities Museum is located on the east bank of Dianchi Lake next to Yunnan Nationalities Village in Kunming City, China. Completed in 1995, it is a comprehensive ethnology museum. Covering an area of over 200 mu, the museum has a building area of 130,000 square meters. It consists of various exhibition halls, office building, report hall, storage and workshops. The ecological environment, religious customs, culture and arts and ethnic relics of the ethnic groups of Yunnan are collected in it.

The 120,000 items of objects fall into the 16 categories such as ethnic groups, dresses and personal adornment, technique, arts, ecology, ancient books, and strange stones etc. Among these, the large-scale wooden sculpture Buddha Image of Dali State made on the basis of Painting Volume of Painter Zhang Shengwen attracts the gaze of people.

Yunnan is a multi-ethnic province and ranks first in China in this aspect, including 25 nationalities with the population accounting for over a third of its total population. Supported by Yunnan provincial government, Yunnan Nationalities Museum prepared its start in October, 1998 and was opened to the public in November 9th, 1995.

Yunnan Nationalities Museum, located in the National Resort zone of Kunming by Dian lake, the museum has a total coverage of 130,000 square meters and built-up area of 30,000 square meters, consists of building for display, demonstration, storage, research and development uses. The whole architecture looks like a courtyard with winding corridors featuring the local and minority nationalities’ styles.

Including 17 nationalities, Yunnan Nationalities Museum assembled 23 assistant research fellows and 28 lecturers. It consists of 5 sections: Administration Department, Exhibition Department, Cultural Relics Department, Research Department, Scientific Education Department, Development Department. The whole collection of the museum reached to over20,000. The museum has a exhibitions focusing on specific subjects.

In addition, the museum is not only a hall for showing the nationalities cultures, but also a beautiful scenic spot and ideal conference center. It has multi-function conference hall which is equipped with simultaneous interpretation system. Book store, handicraft shop, tea house and Artist studios or galleries are available for entertainment. Wish you a good time in Yunnan Nationalities Museum. It extends warm welcome to the visitors from all over the world.

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Construction Background 

 On April 30, 1955, our respected Prime Minister Zhou Enlai give a lecturer when appreciating the "Cultural Relics Exhibition of Yunnan Minorities" after his interview from Southeast Asian countries. He said, A in-depth cultural investigation shall be made for the minorities’ social economic formation, for their achievements under the party’s leading, for the studies on their relations with the central region through cultural relics research their cultural communication and trading with the neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

Upon the lecturer, after one decade’s preparation, our museum was formally accomplished and opened on Nov.9, 1995 as the key-built project during the "Eighth Five-year Plan" of Yunnan Province. ¡¡

Since establishment, the museum has received over 2.5million mantimes from all over the world. Those include some national leaders such as Wu Bangguo, Qiao Shi, Wang Guangying, Yang Rudai and Buhe as well as the prince & princess of Japan, Princess of Thailand, Vice State Secretary of USA and French Ambassador in China,etc. Now we’ve become an important place to celebrate nationality traditional festivals for all nationalities of people visiting in Yunnan. We’ve been awarded a lot of honors including Yunnan“Patriotism Education Base",“Science Popularization Base", "Yunnan Minor Ethical Education Demonstrative Base" and the teaching practice points of universities.