Name: Qingzhou Museum 青州博物馆

Address: No 1, Fangongting West Road, Qingzhou, Shandong province

Hours: 9:00 - 16:30 (October to next April, entry until 16:00); 9:00 - 17:00 (May to September, entry until 16:30)

Admission fee: Admission is free. Visitors should bring valid documents to receive tickets, such as ID card, senior person certificate, driving license, student ID card, or passport. There is a daily limit of 3,000 visitors.

Museum Image

Image provided to chinadaily.com.cn

Qingzhou Museum enjoys a long history that can be traced to 1887 when British missionary JS White founded the Qingzhou Collection Hall – the first museum in China with a western style. In 1959, the Yidu County Museum, the predecessor of the Qingzhou Museum, was built in Ouyuan Garden. In 1984, the museum was founded on the current site and opened to the public in 1986.

Occupying an area of 40 mu (2.67 hectares), the museum comprises of eight exhibition halls to demonstrate materials about Qingzhou history, ceramics, a Buddhist stone statue from Longxing Temple, ancient calligraphy and painting works, stone sculptures, steles, jades, and bronze statues.

Among the more than 50,000 cultural relics collected in the museum, 3,000 are national treasures, such as a jade with the inscription “Yi Zi Sun” from the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) and the scholar paper of Zhao Bingzhong who achieved the highest rank in the imperial examination during the Wanli period (1573-1620) of the Ming Dynasty.