The Sichuan Provincial Museum, situated at the east side of Chengdu’s South Renmin Road Section 4, covers an area of 46,000 sq m including a floor area of 5,000 sq m. Founded in 1941, the museum was named the Sichuan Museum, later, renamed the West Sichuan Museum right after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It was denominated the Sichuan Provincial Museum since 1952.
Of the museum’s more than 150,000 items on display, 500-odd pieces were certified as the class I and 2,000-odd the class II collection respectively by the State Administration for Protection of Cultural Relics. Known as the largest provincial museum in Southwest China, it houses skull fossil relics of Tzeyang Man and various stone wares, dating back to the Palaeolithic Age, which are the most primeval amongst all collections. The collection is particularly strong in the fields of bronze ware of the Kingdoms of Ba and Shu e.g. weapon, vessel, and ritual wares, among which as many as 170 plus bronze wares were unearthed from the tomb of Emperor Shu in Xindu’s Majiashan. The museum is in possession of a rich pool of portrait tile and pottery figurine dating back to the Ming Dynasty. Among all collections are seen a great deal of artefacts from the Tibetan, Qiang, Yi, and Tujia cultures. Additionally, the Chinese painting and calligraphy hall displays works from the Yang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. A raft of materials and pictures left by the red army in the Long March as well as historical documents dating back to the Chinese revolution in recent and modern times are seen out there.
Known as a comprehensive history museum at the provincial level particularly strong in local culture, it quite often kicks off the various temporary or commemorative specialized exhibitions besides 3,300-odd ancient, latter-day, and present-day items on display around the year.

The museum is the first of this kind amid the China’s universities and colleges, located at Chengdu-based Sichuan University. Founded in 1914, it was run into operation in 1919 and underwent several closings and name changes before re-opening under its current name in 1984 (originally the ‘West China University Museum’, and in 1952 the ‘Sichuan University History Museum’). The museum displays a collection of over 40,000 items particularly strong in the fields of ethnology, folklore and traditional arts, Sichuan’s Han Dynasty painting stone and tile, Tang Dynasty Buddhist stone carvings, renowned paper over past dynasties, Sichuan porcelain, paining and calligraphy and artworks of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Throughout the museum are set up ethnology, folklore, painting and calligraphy, Tibetan arts, revolutionary relics, stone carvings exhibition rooms and research rooms. It is pinpointed as the research centre of Southwest China’s archaeology, ethnology, and Southeast Asian history and culture.

CHENGDU MUSEUM

As a comprehensive museum, the Chengdu Museum is designed to collect, protect, research, and display Chengdu’s ancient civilization and modern achievements.
The Chengdu Museum, founded in 1958, was officially open to the public in the Daci Temple of Chengdu on Oct 1, 1984. Merged with Chengdu Academy of Arts in 2004, it boasts a collection of over 120,000 items, among which there are 10,000 precious items, including unearthed, collected, and donated relics. The collection mainly falls into bronze ware, silver and gold ware, jade ware, pottery, porcelain, stone sculpture, painting tile, and painting and calligraphy etc but particularly strong in the fields of Sichuan’s bronze weapon of the Warring States period, painting tile of the Han Dynasty, pottery figurine of the Han Dynasty, Buddhist and Taoist Buddha statures of the Southern Dynasty, and gold and silver ware and jade of the Tang and Song dynasties. To enrich collection and perfect structure, heavy emphasis has been placed upon Tibetan and Qiang folklore artefacts, latter-day woodworks, latter and present-day revolutionary relics.

MUSEUM OF CHENGDU UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

The museum, located at south of the central garden of Chengdu University of Technology having its principle campus at No.1, Dongsan Road, Er’xianqiao, Chengdu, claims a history of nearly 40 years, with over 50,000 items on display. Covering an exhibition area of approximate 2,800 sq m, there are two open-air exhibition areas and nine halls (rooms), folding itself into the largest geological museum in West China.
The museum is of a rich collection and unique structure, mainly famed for the dinosaur fossil. In possession of over ten genera (families) of dinosaur e.g. Mamenchisaurus, Tuojiangosaurus, Szechuanosaurus, Yandusaurus, Dongbeisaurus, and Lufengosaurus, the museum is in fact famous for the Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis, 22m long, which is not only the largest in Asia but the earliest unearthed and researched in the country. In addition, the museum displays the dinosaur egg and footprint fossil with the various shapes and sizes. Aside from the dinosaur, it is particularly strong in the giant panda, stegodon, rhinoceros, Nothosaurus, and fish fossils.
The various minerals, rocks, jades, and gemstones integrating scientific with appreciation values are crystal transparent, colourful, and flamboyant, among which Longchang iron-nickel aerolite weighs 158.5 kg, fallen from the sky in the Ming Dynasty and recorded the earliest ‘unexpected guest from the universe’ as well as the valuable examples of rock and mine were from the South Pole, North Pole, Everest, and bottom of the Pacific Ocean respectively.
Each exhibition hall and specialized display room throughout the museum is of uniqueness. Not only does it convey scientific knowledge and arouse visitor’s interest, but is vivid in both text and picture and easily understood, acting as an window on the mystic earth. Apart from serving the teaching and scientific research purposes, it is open to the public. Visitors are bound to be enlightened by scientific knowledge and acquire enjoyment within limited time and space.

WUHOU TEMPLE (TEMPLE OF MARQUIS) MUSEUM

The Wuhou Temple, located at the Chengdu proper, covers an area of 83.12mu (approximate 55,440 sq m), is the most prestigious site in memory of Zhu Geliang and Liu Bei as well as the China’s largest museum of the Three Kingdoms site. Falling into the Hui tomb, Hanzhaolie Temple, and Wuhou Temple, it dates back to the period (223 AD) during which Liu’s tomb was built, with a history of more than 1,700 years. The Wuhou Temple was open to the public in July 1952 and listed as one of the first batch under state key protection by the State Council in 1961. The Wuhou Temple Museum of Chengdu was completed construction in 1984.
In ownership of as many as 50-odd statues including Liu Bei, Zhu Geliang, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei etc, together with over 50 couplets and inscribed tablets and 50 steles, the museum houses more than 10,000 items in association with Zhu Geliang and the Three Kingdoms Period’s history and culture. The ‘Three Kingdoms Culture Exhibition Room’, ‘Hechang Garden’, ‘Xiangye Pavilion Tourist Centre’, archaized opera stage ‘Jieyilou’ (sworn brother bound), Sanyi Temple, and Jinli Street etc offer tourists with a wide selection of scenic spot and entertainment facility, thanks to profound history, extensive culture, splendid environment, and profuse exhibits.

DU FU COTTAGE MUSEUM OF CHENGDU

Located at the riverside of Chengdu’s Huanhuaxi in the west, the museum was the erstwhile home of the celebrated Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu in exile, where he stayed for nearly four years. It was turned out to be the Du Fu Memorial in 1955 and renamed the Du Fu Cottage Museum in 1984, specializing in research, display, and exhibition of Du Fu’s poems
The present grounds cover 270-odd mu including a floor area (ancient building) of 12,000 sq m, and completely retain the five main commemorative buildings i.e. the Front Entrance, Official Office, Hall of History in Poems, Firewood Gate, and Gongbu Hall, and auxiliary buildings as well e.g. corridor and exhibition room, arrayed on the axle line. Main exhibitions are seen in the ‘Thousands of Years of Fame by the Celebrated Poet’, ‘Passionate Cottage’, and ‘Daya Hall’ (open in the 2002 Spring Festival). Discovery of the Tang Dynasty folk house sufficiently illustrated the styles and features of the Tang Dynasty and filled the blank of this kind in the cottage, drawing intensive attention at home and abroad. Couplets of celebrities and steles of the Du Fu poems throughout the museum exude a sense of grace and elegance. Aside from the beautiful gardens, tourists find themselves cosy as they are surrounded by the courtyard, ancient architecture, brook, and delicate bridge. Echoing the centuries-old buildings, the garden is by all means pristine and secret, vividly reproducing the tranquil and comely environment once depicted by Du Fu. Setting a foot in the cottage, you are reluctant to leave.

CHENGDU YONGLING MUSEUM

With the seat at #5, Yongling Road, Chengdu, Chengdu Yongling Museum was previously the ‘Chengdu Administration for Protection of the Tomb of Wangjian’ established in Nov 1978. The tomb was officially open to the public in 1979 and upgraded to the ‘Museum of the Tomb of Wangjian, Chengdu’ in 1990, and since 1998 it was renamed the ‘Chengdu Yongling Museum’.
The Yong tomb of Chengdu was the Emperor Wang Jiang’s of the Kingdom of Shu in the Period of Five Dynasties and Ten States, located at #10, Yongling Road, Chengdu. The tomb was discovered in the autumn of 1940 but unearthed in 1942. As the earliest tomb of ancient emperor scientifically excavated in China, the protection of the tomb has been drawing intensive attention of the party and state that allocated special funds for many times for the maintenance of antiseepage, sewage, and windproof etc since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It was listed as one of the batch under state key protection in 1961.
The museum, covering an area of 56m, is a renowned tourist attraction in Chengdu, collectively showcasing relics, palatable cuisines, exciting entertainment, and cosy lifestyle, thanks to leafy trees and luxuriant vegetation.

SICHUAN ART MUSEUM

Sichuan Art Museum, located at No.20, West Remin Road, Chengdu, is equipped with the first class facilities. It was run into operation on May 23, 1992 and especially designed to launch the fine arts and photography exhibition, covering a floor area of 5,600 sq m. Comprising of three exhibition halls each on the first, second, and third floors as well as lecture hall, gallery, and conference room, it boasts an exhibition area of 2,700 sq m and exhibition line of 500m. It is fitted with the central air-conditioning, constant temperature and humidity, computer monitoring, and modern lighting and painting storage. It is particularly strong in the realms of Sichuan’s and domestic and int’l artworks and cultural artefacts ranging from fine arts to calligraphy to photography etc. Meanwhile it undertakes aesthetic appreciation and academic research.

SANXINGDUI MUSEUM

The Sanxingdui Museum is located at the northeastern corner of the Sanxingdui site (which is under state key protection), the riverside of the Yazi river west of the famous histrorical and cultural city – Guanghan, some 40km from Chengdu – the capital city of Sichuan in the south. It is a large modern history museum of the country.
Ground broken in August 1992, the museum was open to the public in Oct 1997, covering an area of 20 hectares including a floor area (main building) of 7,000 sq m. In pursuit of verve combing landform and histrorical sites and cultural relic formative art, the exterior appearance of the museum blends both primitive essence with modern contents in an endeavor to reappear the immemorial and profound Sanxingdui civilization and culture.
Claiming an exhibition area of 4,000 sq m and exhibition line of 800-odd m, the museum focuses on the ‘Exhibition of the Ancient City, Kingdom, and Shu Culture’ to holistically demonstrate more than 1,000 precious items such as pottery, jade, bone, gold, and bronze wares unearthed in the Sanxingdui site and No.1 and 2 large Shang Dynasty ritual sites.

CHENGDU JINSHA SITE MUSEUM (under construction)

The Jinsha site, locked in a hinterland of the Chengdu plain, is between the 2nd and 3rd ring road west of Chengdu, with a known distribution area of around 5 sq km. Centring the ritual site, the Jinsha site is distributed in a block and open manner. As the capital of the Kingdom of Shu in ancient times, the Jinsha site witnessed a rich pool of cultural and historical relics unearthed. Of its 3,000-odd significant relics cleaned and excavated such as gold, jade, bronze, stone, and ivory wares, there are a number of national treasure level relics, whose values are comparable with Sanxingdui. Additionally, a great deal of ivory and thousands of pottery fraction and pottery etc were discovered. Based on the relics excavated in the Jinsha site, historians inferred that the Chengdu proper with the site as the centre had become the important political, religious, and cultural centre of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River 3,000-odd years ago.
The construction of the Chengdu Jinsha Site Museum kicked off in 2004. The museum is designed to fall into three sections, i.e. the Site Exhibition Hall, Display Building, and Outdoor Sight Exhibition. The Site Exhibition Hall was completed construction in Dec 2005 and will be open in an orderly manner. By the end of 2006, the museum is expected to be fully open to the public.

The palace, located at the centre of the China’s well-known cultural city – Chengdu, faces the beautiful Tianfu Square in the west and is adjacent to the bustling and hustling Shudu Avenue in the north. It was run into operation in April 1987, covering an area of 18,850 sq m.
Majestic and graceful, the main body of the palace – theatre is surrounded by a pool in three directions in which twelve units of different fountains and underwater colour lights were installed, turning out the palace to be a pearl on the square glittering at night. The theatre is furnished with granite coating and amber-yellow glass wall in the south and north and west respectively. At the spacious lobby are hung 14 crystal ceiling lights, magnificent and gorgeous. The hexagonal audience hall fitted with the central air-conditioning is 31.2 m long and 30 m wide, housing 1,450 sofa chairs, each of which has a nice view and is elegant and comfortable. To ensure an excellent performance effect, the theatre is equipped with the world topnotch acoustics, lighting control system, and numerical control positioning suspender. The stage, 9 m high, 30 m wide, and 21 m deep, is armed with the leading acoustic reflection shell and hydraulic telescoping orchestra pit.
The Jin Cheng Art Palace, brilliant stage of the ‘heavenly land’, has received the various domestic and int’l troupes whilst it has acted as a rendezvous of all kinds of convention and grand ceremony in the province, it has become the centre for the provincial political and cultural exchange and the prestigious art palace in West China.

CHENGDU ARTS CENTRE, PRIDE CONCERT HALL
The concert hall, situated at #48, Shuinianhe Road, Chengdu, covers an area of 1,160 sq m and accommodates 850 audiences. Featuring an oval structure and unique style, the concert hall was designed, built and furnished in accordance with the modern acoustics to present the performance not relying on the electronic public-address system. It is ideal for symphony, national music orchestra, chamber music, vocal and instrument solos, and fashion show etc.