Croatian Natural History Museum, Natural history museum in Gornji Grad, Croatia.
The Croatian Natural History Museum is a natural history museum in the center of Zagreb, Croatia, holding collections of animals, plants, fossils, and minerals tied to the country and the wider region. The building has several floors of permanent exhibition rooms, each focused on a different part of the natural world.
The museum began with the National Museum, founded on 10 September 1846 in Opatička Street and moved to its present address in 1867. By the end of the 19th century it had split into five museums, three of them natural history collections housed together at Demeter Street 1. These were united in 1986 as the Croatian Natural History Museum. The building, the Amadeo Palace, housed Zagreb's first theatre from 1797 to 1834.
The museum's Croatian name is Hrvatski prirodoslovni muzej, not Prirodoslovni muzej i zoološki vrt. Since 2000 the atrium has hosted Scena Amadeo, a summer series of theatrical plays reviving the Amadeo theatre that operated in this building from 1797 to 1834. The museum publishes Natura Croatica, Croatia's first natural history scientific journal, launched in 1992.
The museum is located in central Zagreb and can be reached on foot from most of the city's main landmarks. Plan for around one to two hours for a relaxed visit, though those interested in specific collections may want to allow more time.
The museum's atrium features a mosaic wall made entirely from rock samples gathered across Croatia, turning a decorative element into a geological map of the country. Visitors who stop to look closely can spot stones from coastal and inland regions side by side.
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