Prague National Museum (Národní Muzeum in Czech) is in the city center on Wenceslas Square.
Housed in one of the city’s most significant buildings, it was founded in 1818 under the name of the Patriotic Museum of Bohemia.
The building in which the museum is now housed represents the best of the Bohemian Neo-Renaissance style, with sculptural decorations inside and out, the monumental main staircase hall, and the Pantheon located under the dome.
National Museum houses exhibits on the prehistory of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, rock and mineral collections, and extensive paleontology, zoology, and anthropology exhibits.
The prehistoric natural history exhibition is one of the most modern in Europe, with artifacts from Protohistory to the Quaternary.
Among the exhibits are the fossil of the world’s oldest known terrestrial vascular plant (Cooksonia barrandei) and a model of Burianosaurus augustai, the only dinosaur found in the Czech Republic.
The mineral hall houses over 4.000 artifacts from around the world, including numerous meteorite fragments.
Another museum section is dedicated to Czech history from the 8th century to the First World War, with over 2.000 artifacts.
Outside the building is a memorial to Jan Palach, a university student who set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring in 1969.
