Confucius Museum

Confucius Museum
孔子博物馆

Address: 100 Kongzi Boulevard, Qufu city, Shandong province
Opening hours: 9 am- 5pm (Last entry at 4 pm)
Closed Mondays (Except for public holidays)
General admission: Free (Valid ID certificates required for entry)
Tel: (+86-537) 4459065/9088

The Confucius Museum was officially opened to the public in 2019 to inherit and carry forward traditional Chinese culture and to provide a better environment for protecting nearly 700,000 cultural relics in the Confucius Family Mansion, which was designated a world heritage by UNESCO in 1994.

This museum, with a total construction area of 55,000 square meters, is a provincial level large-scale modern museum. Academician Wu Liangyong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering designed its main hall in the architectural style of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220), which endows this building with rich cultural taste.

The Confucius Museum holds some 700,000 cultural relics, which are mainly from the old collections of the Confucius Family Mansion, including archival ancient books and documents, ceramics, bronze wares, fabrics, calligraphy and paintings, bamboo, wood and ivory carvings, jade, metals and furniture.

The most representative collections are the archives and files of the Confucius Family Mansion extant since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), ancient books, clothes and costumes of the Ming and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, and some ritual and musical instruments prepared for offering sacrifices to Confucius (551-479 BC).

The permanent exhibition of the Confucius Museum is themed around Confucius’s life and the Confucian philosophy formed on its basis. The exhibition is in six parts, namely, Confucius' Era, Confucius' Life, Confucius' Wisdom, Confucius and Chinese Civilization, Confucius and World Civilization, and the Collection of the Kong Family Mansion.