Carnival Museum, Cultural museum in Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo, Uruguay

The museum documents Montevideo's carnival celebrations through costumes, masks, drums, photographs, and recordings displayed in interactive formats. The collection traces how these festivities have evolved across generations.

The museum was founded in 2006 to preserve artifacts spanning over a century of carnival traditions. The collection reflects how European and African influences merged to shape these local customs.

The exhibits showcase the rhythms and musical styles that define Montevideo's street celebrations, showing how communities come together through song and dance. You can see how these traditions shape local identity and continue to draw people into the streets each year.

The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday in the old town district near the waterfront promenade, easily accessible on foot. Free entry for children under 12 makes it a family-friendly visit, and interactive displays keep all ages engaged.

A cobblestone street runs through the museum's interior; its coordinator, alongside Eduardo Rabelino, called it the first museum in the world with a street inside, fitting because carnival belongs to the street and the neighbourhood. The museum also holds a display on the murgas, which until 1917 competed as "máscaras sueltas" in the official contest.