Shanghai Astronomy Museum

Opened in July 2021, Shanghai Astronomy Museum is the world’s largest planetarium, covering approximately 58,600 square meters. Located in the Lingang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, it features three main exhibition areas: ‘Home’, ‘Universe’, and ‘Journey’, along with special exhibitions like ‘Chinese Sky Quest’, ‘Curious Planets’, and ‘Voyage to Mars’. The museum houses over 300 exhibits, with 85% being original and more than 50% interactive. It also offers educational programs and an observatory for astronomical observation.

Planning your visit

The Shanghai Astronomy Museum is the largest planetarium complex in the world, and its architecture is an astronomical instrument. Ennead's design has no straight lines: an oculus above the entrance casts a moving circle of sunlight that tracks across the ground and marks the summer solstice precisely, an inverted glass dome sits above the roof for naked-eye sky viewing, and a sphere holding the planetarium theatre is half-buried so it reads as a rising or setting body.

Inside, three main areas — Home, Universe and Journey — cover the solar system, cosmology and space exploration, with over 300 exhibits of which the museum states 85 percent are original and more than half interactive. Special exhibitions cover Chinese astronomical history, planetary science and Mars missions. A solar telescope and an observatory allow real observation.

The location is the practical obstacle: Lingang is at the far southeastern edge of Shanghai, well over an hour from the centre, and advance reservation is required.

Bookable options include entry tickets and digital explorer quest formats aimed at families. Combining it with the Shanghai Natural History Museum on separate days rather than one is more realistic given the distances. Current availability is shown below.