Located at Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Inner Mongolian Museum is a local comprehensive museum, boasting a good selection of Mongolian items and a historical lineage of this vast grassland. Construction began in 1955, and the museum was open to the public on May 1, 1957.
The Museum covers an area of 5,000 square meters, with 3,500 square meters for the exhibition halls. It is a two-storeyed white building with a white sculpture of a running courser on its top, which is the typical architectural style of the Mongolia nationality.
The Museum boasts 56,475 pieces of cultural relics, of which 635 pieces are the first-grade, including an eagle-shaped golden coronet of the Warring States Period (475-221BC) with 7.1cm in height and 192 grams in weight, and a set of golden coronet strips (consisting of 3 pieces) with 1,022.4 grams in weight. These two items were unearthed in 1972. In addition, an incense burner of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) of 42.7cm high was unearthed in Hohhot in 1970.
The Museum features four exhibition halls: Display of Ancient Animals' Remains, Display of Historical Relics, Display of Folk Relics and Display of Revolutionary Relics.
The Display of Ancient Animals' Remains is an exhibition of extinct species and recent archeological finds, with one of China's best selections of fossilized remains, mainly of animals and dinosaurs, showing the evolvement process of ancient extinct life.
The Display of Historical Relics exhibits the history of Inner Mongolia and introduces Dayao Artifacts Manufacturing Workshop of the early Paleolithic Age, Dayao Culture and Hetao Culture, including a display of cultural relics of the eight ethnic groups living here for generations, and artifacts representing the Grassland Culture -- hunting and sports implements such as saddles and leather overcoats, a model yurt (Mongolian tent), costumes and cooking implements, etc.
The Display of Folk Relics is a display of the customs of the ethnic groups in Inner Mongolia, reflecting their life and production, literature and art, and religion.
The Display of Revolutionary Relics is a record of what the Mongolians have achieved in their revolution from 1921 to 1949.
Exhibitions held by the museum included Relics of the Nationality on Horseback in Inner Mongolia of China, Folk Relics of the Mongolian Ethnic Group, Collected Porcelain of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and Unearthed Ancient Coins Collected by the Museum, etc.