Xi'an Museum, Archaeological museum in Shaanxi Province, China

The Xi'an Museum is a museum complex in Beilin District, Xi'an, comprising a modern museum building, the Tang-era Jianfu Temple and Small Wild Goose Pagoda, and gardens. The museum, designed by Zhang Jinqiu, has a square base and a central cylindrical glass hall with a lotus-patterned ceiling. Its galleries occupy 5,244 square meters on the underground level and the first and second floors, and hold over 110,000 artifacts.

The museum's planning began in 1996, when architect Zhang Jinqiu drafted a feasibility report for a complex of museum, folklore hall, Buddhist culture hall and gardens. Construction started in August 2002 on the site of Jianfu Temple and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, and the museum opened on 18 May 2007, International Museum Day, ending Xi'an's lack of a large municipal museum. It became free to enter on 31 March 2010.

The permanent displays are grouped into themed sections: Buddhist sculpture ("Baoxiang Zhuangyan"), ancient painting and calligraphy, ancient jade ("Tiandi Zhiling") and ancient seals ("Keli Daqian"). The seal section, organised with Lüshun Museum, shows over 200 objects, mainly Qin and Han seals and Jin official seals, plus more than twenty Qin clay seal impressions excavated at Xiangjiaxiang in Xi'an. The jade gallery covers 350 square metres and displays about 148 items, most shown publicly for the first time.

You need to book ahead since free entry requires advance reservations. The museum connects easily to the city via metro line 2 or buses, making it straightforward to reach from downtown Xi'an.

The central hall is a cylindrical glass rotunda topped by a gilded lotus pattern, with a cloud-stone lamp set in the ceiling. Architect Zhang Jinqiu, of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, designed the square base and round hall to echo the nearby Small Wild Goose Pagoda.