China Ethnic Museum

The China Ethnic Museum, also known as the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, is an anthropological museum in Beijing that reconstructs, collects, displays, and studies the cultures, histories, and social life of China’s 56 ethnic groups. It features full-scale reconstructions of traditional residences, religious sites, and iconic landscapes, offering visitors an immersive experience of China’s ethnic diversity.

Planning your visit

China recognises 56 ethnic groups, and the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park in Beijing reconstructs their architecture at full scale across a large site near the Olympic complex — Dai stilt houses, Tibetan stone buildings, Miao drum towers, Uyghur courtyards, Mongolian gers, Dong wind-and-rain bridges and dozens more, built using traditional methods and materials.

Alongside the buildings sit collections of costume, tools, instruments and religious objects, with performances of music and dance staged through the day and craftspeople demonstrating textile and metalwork techniques.

The park's framing is the official Chinese account of a unified multi-ethnic state, and visitors should read it as such — the politics of ethnic policy in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia are contested and absent here.

Taken as an architectural survey, the reconstructions are genuinely impressive and represent building traditions that are disappearing in their home regions.

The site is large; allow half a day.

Bookable options include entry tickets with digital guides. Current availability is listed below.