In Taipei there is the greatest collection of Chinese artifacts assembled. It’s located at the National Palace Museum. There are over 720,000 items in the collection, but only a small portion (15,000 pieces) are on display at the museum at any one time. The exhibits are rotated every 3 months so a total 60,000 pieces are displayed through the year.
Some of the items are:
Paintings
Books
Jades
Ceramics
Bronzes
Curios
and much more, for full list of the exhibits visit:
National Palace Museum
The NPM opened for the first time on October 10, 1925 in Beijing. The Republic of China was just beginning and wanted to make the treasures of the Chinese imperial collection accessible to the common person. The collection has moved many times during World War II, and the Chinese Civil war. When the Kuomintang (KMT) government realized they were losing the civil war in 1949 shipped the collection to the port of Keelung in Taiwan as a temporary measure. From 1949 to 1957 the collection was stored in caves in Wufeng waiting to be returned to the Mainland once the war was won.
In 1957 a small viewing room was constructed in Wufeng to display some of the treasures. 1965 marked a turning point in the collection when the National Palace Museum opened. The National Palace Museum was considered a temporary resting spot for the collection as the KMT has always had plans for retaking the Mainland. During all this moving and war, not a single piece was broken.
National
Palace Museum
Open every day
Hours: 9:00AM to 5:00PM
Address: 221 Chih-Shan Rd., Section 2
Taipei, Taiwan 111
Tel: 886-2-2881-2021
Fax: 886-2-2882-1440
Email: service01@npm.gov.tw
NPM
Directions
Check the web site for directions and instruction on getting there by bus, taxi,
car or the MRT.
