Maastricht Natural History Museum, Natural history museum in Jekerkwartier district, Maastricht, Netherlands.
The Maastricht Natural History Museum is a natural history museum in a former monastery building in the Jekerkwartier district, with collections focused on the geology, fossils, plants, and animals of South Limburg. The building has indoor gallery spaces as well as an outdoor courtyard garden along the Jeker River.
The building was originally constructed as a monastery and has housed a natural science collection since the 19th century. The museum became widely known early on through the discovery of a mosasaurus skull in a nearby quarry, which remains one of the key fossils associated with the collection.
The museum sits in the Jekerkwartier, one of the oldest parts of Maastricht, and its courtyard garden runs along the Jeker River. The garden still grows herbs and plants that were once cultivated by the monks who lived there, giving visitors a sense of how the space was used for centuries.
The museum is within walking distance of Maastricht city center, in the Jekerkwartier district, and is easy to find on foot. Visitors who want to see both the indoor collections and the courtyard garden should leave enough time for both, as they complement each other well.
The museum holds a rat king from the 19th century, a rare phenomenon where several rats are found with their tails knotted together. Only a handful of such specimens are known to exist worldwide, making this one of the most unexpected objects in the collection.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
