Tokyo · Sights

Best Museum in Tokyo

101 places, each checked by our team.

• ADMT Advertising Museum Tokyo アドミュージアム東京Shiodome — A free museum under Caretta Shiodome tracing Japanese advertising from Edo-period shop signs and ukiyo-e ads to TV commercials, run by the Yoshida…
• Ancient Orient Museum 古代オリエント博物館Ikebukuro — Museum of the ancient Near East inside Sunshine City, with finds from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria and the Silk Road, opened in 1978.
• Artizon Museum アーティゾン美術館Kyobashi / Nihonbashi — The former Bridgestone Museum, reborn in 2020 in a sleek Kyobashi tower: Impressionists, Japanese modern masters and contemporary art, with timed…
• Asakura Museum of Sculpture 朝倉彫塑館Yanaka — Sculptor Fumio Asakura's home and studio in Yanaka, a mix of concrete atelier and wooden Japanese house around a water garden, with a rooftop garden…
• Bank of Japan Currency Museum 日本銀行金融研究所貨幣博物館Nihonbashi — A free museum opposite the Bank of Japan headquarters showing 2,000 years of Japanese money, from ancient copper coins and gold oban to the latest…
• Buaiso (Former Shirasu Residence) 旧白洲邸 武相荘Tsurukawa / Machida — The thatched farmhouse in the Machida hills where the diplomat Shirasu Jiro and essayist Shirasu Masako lived a famously stylish country life from…
• Chihiro Art Museum Tokyo ちひろ美術館・東京Nerima — A gentle museum on the site of picture-book artist Chihiro Iwasaki's home in Nerima, showing her watercolours of children alongside picture-book art…
• Daigo Fukuryumaru Museum 都立第五福竜丸展示館Yumenoshima — Free hall preserving the wooden tuna boat Lucky Dragon No. 5, irradiated by the 1954 US hydrogen-bomb test at Bikini Atoll.
• Dazai Osamu Literary Salon 太宰治文学サロンMitaka — A small, free salon run by Mitaka City on the site of the liquor shop where Dazai Osamu used to buy his sake. It holds first editions, manuscripts…
• Edo-Tokyo Museum 東京都江戸東京博物館Ryogoku — Tokyo's history museum, reopened on March 31, 2026 after a four-year renovation: walk across a full-size Nihonbashi bridge into Edo, with kabuki…
• Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum 江戸東京たてもの園Koganei — An open-air park of 30 relocated historic buildings in Koganei Park, Edo farmhouses, a Showa bathhouse, old shops and architect mansions, that…
• Eisei Bunko Museum 永青文庫Mejirodai — Museum of the Hosokawa samurai family's heirlooms, housed in a 1930s building on the former estate above Higo Hosokawa Garden.
• Fire Museum (Tokyo Fire Department) 消防博物館Yotsuya — A free five-floor museum on Edo-to-present firefighting run by the Tokyo Fire Department, with vintage fire engines, a real helicopter on the roof…
• Fuchu Kyodo-no-mori Museum 府中市郷土の森博物館Fuchu — An open-air museum park on the Tama River where historic Fuchu buildings, a Meiji town hall and old farmhouses stand among a huge plum garden and a…
• Fukagawa Edo Museum 深川江戸資料館Kiyosumi-Shirakawa — Step into a full-scale 1840s Edo riverside town indoors, rice shop, boathouse, tenement row and fire tower, where the lighting shifts from dawn to…
• Gas Science Museum がすてなーに ガスの科学館Toyosu — Free Tokyo Gas science museum in Toyosu with hands-on energy exhibits and a rooftop terrace overlooking the bay.
• Ghibli Museum, Mitaka 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館Mitaka — Hayao Miyazaki's whimsical museum on the edge of Inokashira Park: a hand-built labyrinth of animation workshops, a giant Catbus and an exclusive…
• Gotoh Museum 五島美術館Kaminoge — A private museum of classical Japanese art in leafy Kaminoge, famous for owning scenes from the 12th-century Tale of Genji scrolls and for a…
• Great Kanto Earthquake Memorial Museum 東京都復興記念館Ryogoku / Yokoami — Free 1931 memorial museum in Yokoamicho Park documenting the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the firebombing of Tokyo.
• Gyokudo Art Museum 玉堂美術館Mitake Gorge / Ome — Museum of the Japanese painter Kawai Gyokudo on the banks of Mitake Gorge, with a celebrated dry landscape garden.
• Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art 畠山記念館Shirokanedai / Takanawadai — Museum of tea ceremony art founded by industrialist Hatakeyama Issei, set in a wooded Shirokanedai garden with tea houses.
• Hino-juku Honjin 日野宿本陣Hino — The only surviving honjin (official inn for travelling lords) building in Tokyo, a big wooden house of 1864 on the old Koshu-kaido highway. The…
• Ichinoe Nanushi Yashiki 一之江名主屋敷Ichinoe / Harue-cho — An Edo-period village headmans farmhouse with a thatched roof, earthen-floored kitchen and moated garden: one of the best-preserved rural homesteads…
• Intermediatheque インターメディアテクMarunouchi / Tokyo Station — A free, beautifully eccentric cabinet of curiosities run by the University of Tokyo inside KITTE: whale skeletons, antique scientific instruments…
• Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan) 日本民藝館Komaba — Founded in 1936 by Soetsu Yanagi, father of the mingei movement, in a beautiful tiled-roof house in Komaba: hand-made pottery, textiles, lacquer and…
• Japan Olympic Museum 日本オリンピックミュージアムGaienmae / Sendagaya — The Japanese Olympic Committee's museum beside the new National Stadium, with interactive sports challenges, Olympic torches and medals and an…
• Japanese Sword Museum 刀剣博物館Ryogoku — The only museum in Tokyo dedicated purely to the Japanese sword: masterpiece blades, including National Treasures, displayed so you can study the…
• Kadono Eiko Childrens Literature Museum (Kikis Museum) 魔法の文学館（江戸川区角野栄子児童文学館）Minami-Kasai — A strawberry-pink childrens literature museum by Kengo Kuma, dedicated to Eiko Kadono, author of Kikis Delivery Service, set in Nagisa Park on Tokyo…
• Katsushika City Museum (Local History & Astronomy) 葛飾区郷土と天文の博物館Shiratori / Horikiri — A ward museum that pairs Katsushikas local history, from Jomon finds to Showa factory life, with a planetarium and rooftop observatory; the…
• Katsushika Shibamata Tora-san Museum & Yoji Yamada Museum 葛飾柴又寅さん記念館・山田洋次ミュージアムShibamata — A loving museum about Tora-san, hero of the 50-film Otoko wa Tsurai yo series, with the original Kurumaya dumpling-shop set, plus an attached…
• Matsuoka Museum of Art 松岡美術館Shirokanedai — A quietly eclectic private museum in Shirokanedai where Gandhara Buddhas, Egyptian antiquities, Chinese porcelain and French Impressionists share…
• Meguro Parasitological Museum 目黒寄生虫館Meguro — The world's only museum dedicated to parasites, about 300 pickled specimens including an 8.8-metre tapeworm, free, tiny and a cult favourite for…
• Meiji Jingu Museum 明治神宮ミュージアムHarajuku — Kengo Kuma-designed museum inside the Meiji Jingu forest displaying belongings of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken.
• Meiji University Museum 明治大学博物館Ochanomizu — Free university museum with archaeology, traditional crafts and a notorious criminal-justice section showing Edo-period punishment tools.
• Memorial Museum for Soldiers, Detainees in Siberia, and Postwar Repatriates 平和祈念展示資料館Nishi-Shinjuku — Free national museum on the 33rd floor of a Nishi-Shinjuku tower about soldiers, Siberian detainees and civilians repatriated after World War II.
• Minato City Local History Museum 港区立郷土歴史館Shirokanedai — Local history museum in the restored 1938 Institute of Public Health building, a Gothic-style landmark by Uchida Yoshikazu.
• Minato Science Museum 港区立みなと科学館Toranomon — Free hands-on science museum run by Minato City, with a planetarium and a weather science corner, open until 8 pm.
• Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo 三菱一号館美術館Marunouchi — A faithful reconstruction of Josiah Conder's 1894 red-brick Mitsubishi office in Marunouchi, now an intimate museum for late-19th and…
• Mitsui Memorial Museum 三井記念美術館Nihonbashi — The Mitsui family's collection of tea ceremony treasures and Japanese art, displayed in wood-panelled galleries inside the 1929 Mitsui Main Building…
• Mori Art Museum 森美術館Roppongi — Tokyo's leading contemporary art museum, 53 floors up in Roppongi Hills, open until 22:00 most nights and paired with the Tokyo City View observatory.
• Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) 東京都現代美術館Kiyosumi-Shirakawa / Kiba — Tokyo's biggest contemporary art museum, in the leafy Kiba Park neighbourhood, with a 5,500-work collection, ambitious exhibitions and a vast,…
• National Film Archive of Japan 国立映画アーカイブKyobashi — Japan's national film archive in Kyobashi, with a 7th-floor gallery on the history of Japanese cinema and two theatres screening restored classics…
• National Museum of Nature and Science 国立科学博物館Ueno — Japan's national natural history and science museum in Ueno Park, dinosaur skeletons, Hachiko the loyal dog, a full-size blue whale outside and a…
• National Museum of Western Art 国立西洋美術館Ueno — Le Corbusier's only building in East Asia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Ueno, home to the Matsukata Collection of Monet, Rodin and Old Masters.
• Nezu Museum 根津美術館Aoyama / Omotesando — Kengo Kuma's serene bamboo-lined museum of pre-modern Japanese and East Asian art in Aoyama, with one of the loveliest strolling gardens in central…
• NHK Museum of Broadcasting NHK放送博物館Atago / Toranomon — The world's first broadcasting museum, on Atagoyama hill where Japan's first radio station began transmitting in 1925, with vintage TVs, a studio…
• Nikon Museum ニコンミュージアムNishi-Oi / Shinagawa — Nikon's free corporate museum, reopened in October 2024 in the company's new global headquarters in Nishi-Oi, telling the story of Nikon from 1917…
• Okura Museum of Art 大倉集古館Toranomon — Japan's oldest private art museum, founded in 1917, housed in a Chinese-style 1927 pavilion by Chuta Ito in the forecourt of The Okura Tokyo hotel.
• Old Shimbashi Station Railway History Exhibition Room 旧新橋停車場 鉄道歴史展示室Shiodome — A free museum in a faithful replica of Shimbashi Station, the Tokyo terminus of Japan's first railway in 1872, with the original platform…
• Ome Railway Park 青梅鉄道公園Ome — A hilltop railway park above Ome where a dozen historic locomotives and trains stand under new roofs, from a British-built 1871 steam engine to a…
• Omori Nori Museum 大森 海苔のふるさと館Omori / Heiwajima — A free waterfront museum telling how Omori's shallows once produced Japan's finest nori seaweed, with a real nori boat, drying racks and hands-on…
• Ota Memorial Museum of Art 太田記念美術館Harajuku — A hushed ukiyo-e sanctuary on a Harajuku backstreet, rotating monthly exhibitions from a 14,000-print collection, with a tatami room where you can…
• Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art パナソニック汐留美術館Shiodome — A compact corporate museum in Shiodome with a permanent room devoted to Georges Rouault and well-curated exhibitions on design, crafts and modern art.
• Paper Museum 紙の博物館Oji — One of the world's oldest paper museums, in Asukayama Park in Oji where Japan's first Western-style paper mill opened, covering washi making,…
• Polar Science Museum 国立極地研究所 南極・北極科学館Tachikawa — Free museum of the National Institute of Polar Research covering Japan's Antarctic and Arctic expeditions, with real snowmobiles and ice cores.
• Police Museum (Tokyo Metropolitan Police) 警察博物館Gotanda — The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's free museum, relocated in 2026 from Kyobashi to the TOC Building in Nishi-Gotanda, with a police…
• Postal Museum Japan 郵政博物館Oshiage / Skytree — Japan's national museum of postal and communications history, on the 9th floor of Tokyo Solamachi at the foot of Skytree, with one of the world's…
• Printing Museum, Tokyo 印刷博物館Koishikawa — TOPPAN's museum of printing and communication in Koishikawa, from Edo woodblock prints and Gutenberg-era books to a working letterpress studio you…
• Sato Sakura Museum 郷さくら美術館Nakameguro — Small museum of contemporary Japanese-style (nihonga) painting near the Meguro River, famous for its spring cherry blossom exhibition.
• Science Museum (Kagaku Gijutsukan) 科学技術館Kitanomaru / Kudanshita — A hands-on science and technology museum in a star-shaped 1964 building in Kitanomaru Park, packed with experiments for kids, next to the Nippon…
• Seikado Bunko Art Museum 静嘉堂文庫美術館Marunouchi — The Iwasaki family's treasure house, now in the 1934 Meiji Seimei-kan in Marunouchi, owner of one of only three intact yohen tenmoku tea bowls on…
• Sen-oku Hakukokan Museum Tokyo 泉屋博古館東京Roppongi — Tokyo branch of the Sumitomo family's art museum, known for its ancient Chinese bronzes and changing exhibitions of Asian and Japanese art.
• Setagaya Literary Museum 世田谷文学館Roka-koen / Setagaya — Literature museum in western Setagaya with lively special exhibitions on authors, manga artists and illustrators.
• Shitamachi Museum 台東区立下町風俗資料館Ueno — A tiny museum by Ueno's Shinobazu Pond recreating the cramped wooden merchant houses and alleys of old working-class Tokyo, reopened in 2025 after…
• Shoto Museum of Art 渋谷区立松濤美術館Shoto — An eccentric stone museum by architect Shirai Seiichi in Shibuya's posh Shoto district, built around a fountain-filled oval atrium you cross on a…
• Showa no Kurashi Museum 昭和のくらし博物館Minami-Kugahara — A 1951 family house in quiet Ota, left exactly as its owners lived in it, with tatami rooms, an old kitchen, school bags and kotatsu: a time capsule…
• Showakan (National Showa Memorial Museum) 昭和館Kudanshita — A Kudanshita museum of everyday life in wartime and postwar Japan (1935–1955): ration books, air-raid hoods, black-market goods and a recreated…
• SMALL WORLDS TOKYO スモールワールズTOKYOAriake / Odaiba — One of the world's largest indoor miniature theme parks, in a converted Ariake warehouse: a 1/80-scale Kansai Airport with moving planes, a space…
• SOMPO Museum of Art SOMPO美術館Nishi-Shinjuku — The Shinjuku museum where one of Van Gogh's Sunflowers hangs permanently, in a curved 2020 building at the foot of the Sompo Japan tower.
• Subway Museum (Kasai) 地下鉄博物館Kasai — Tokyo Metros museum under the Tozai Line viaduct at Kasai, with the 1927 yellow Ginza Line car No. 1001 (Japans first subway train), a cut-away…
• Suginami Animation Museum 杉並アニメーションミュージアムOgikubo — A free museum about how Japanese animation is made, in Suginami ward, home to more anime studios than anywhere in Japan, with hands-on dubbing and…
• Sumida Hokusai Museum すみだ北斎美術館Ryogoku — A gleaming, faceted aluminium museum by Kazuyo Sejima devoted to Katsushika Hokusai, born in this very neighbourhood, with touch-screen copies of…
• Sumo Museum 相撲博物館Ryogoku — A small free museum inside Ryogoku Kokugikan, the national sumo arena, with portraits of every yokozuna, ceremonial aprons and woodblock prints of…
• Suntory Museum of Art サントリー美術館Roppongi — An elegant museum of Japanese decorative arts inside Tokyo Midtown, lacquer, glass, ceramics and textiles in Kengo Kuma-designed galleries of…
• TAKAO 599 MUSEUM 高尾599ミュージアムMt. Takao — Free nature museum at the foot of Mt. Takao introducing the mountain's plants, insects and animals with a striking specimen wall.
• Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum 岡本太郎記念館Minami-Aoyama — The Aoyama home and studio of Taro Okamoto, the explosive avant-garde artist behind Osaka's Tower of the Sun, with his paintbrushes still in place…
• The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum 野球殿堂博物館Korakuen / Suidobashi — Japan's baseball museum and hall of fame inside Tokyo Dome, covering the sport from its 1870s arrival to Ohtani and the World Baseball Classic.
• The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) 東京国立近代美術館Takebashi / Imperial Palace — Japan's first national art museum, beside the Imperial Palace moat: 13,000 works of 20th-century Japanese art, from Yokoyama Taikan to Yayoi Kusama,…
• The University Museum, The University of Tokyo 東京大学総合研究博物館Hongo — Free research museum on the University of Tokyo's Hongo campus with changing exhibitions drawn from millions of scientific and cultural specimens.
• Tobacco & Salt Museum たばこと塩の博物館Oshiage / Skytree — A surprisingly absorbing JT-run museum in Sumida about two former state monopolies, with Edo smoking pipes and ukiyo-e, a giant block of rock salt,…
• Tobu Museum 東武博物館Higashi-Mukojima — Railway museum of the Tobu company beside Higashi-Mukojima Station, with restored steam locomotives, old cars and train simulators.
• Tokiwa-so Manga Museum トキワ荘マンガミュージアムMinami-Nagasaki — A faithful reconstruction of the humble 1950s wooden apartment house where Osamu Tezuka, Fujiko Fujio and Shotaro Ishinomori lived as young artists,…
• Tokyo Fuji Museum 東京富士美術館Hachioji — Large art museum in Hachioji with a strong collection of Western oil paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th century, plus Japanese art.
• Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum 東京都美術館Ueno — Ueno Park's big-ticket exhibition hall: blockbuster international shows plus dozens of affordable artist-group exhibitions in a brick Kunio Maekawa…
• Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum 東京都庭園美術館Shirokanedai — A 1933 Art Deco mansion built for Prince Asaka, with René Lalique glass doors and Henri Rapin interiors, now a museum hosting design and…
• Tokyo National Museum 東京国立博物館Ueno — Japan's oldest and largest museum, holding the world's finest collection of Japanese art: samurai armour, national-treasure scrolls, Buddhist…
• Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (TOP Museum) 東京都写真美術館Ebisu — Japan's only public museum dedicated to photography and moving images, in Yebisu Garden Place, three floors of exhibitions plus an art-house cinema.
• Tokyo Toy Museum 東京おもちゃ美術館Yotsuya — A hands-on wooden toy museum in a converted 1930s elementary school in Yotsuya, where kids (and adults) play with thousands of toys from Japan and…
• Tokyo Water Science Museum 東京都水の科学館Ariake / Odaiba — A free, kid-friendly Tokyo Metropolitan Government museum in Ariake about where the city's tap water comes from, with interactive water play and a…
• Tokyo Waterworks Historical Museum 東京都水道歴史館Hongo — Free museum on 400 years of Tokyo's water supply, from Edo-period wooden pipes to the modern network.
• Toyo Bunko Museum 東洋文庫ミュージアムKomagome — The museum of Japan's largest Asian studies library in Komagome, famous for the Morrison Library, a floor-to-ceiling wall of 24,000 rare books,…
• Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University 早稲田大学坪内博士記念演劇博物館Waseda — A free theatre museum in a 1928 replica of an Elizabethan playhouse on the Waseda campus, holding kabuki costumes, noh masks, ukiyo-e actor prints…
• Unko Museum TOKYO うんこミュージアム TOKYOOdaiba — A gleefully silly, pastel-pink "poop museum" in DiverCity Odaiba, giant swirly poop fountains, toilet slides, shouting games and endless photo…
• World Bags & Luggage Museum 世界のカバン博物館Asakusa / Komagata — Free museum run by luggage maker ACE showing about 550 bags from around the world, a few minutes from Senso-ji.
• Yamatane Museum of Art 山種美術館Hiroo — Tokyo's specialist museum of nihonga (modern Japanese-style painting), home to Hayami Gyoshu's moths circling a flame and Takeuchi Seiho's tabby…
• Yayoi Kusama Museum 草間彌生美術館Shinjuku (Bentencho) — A slim white tower in Shinjuku dedicated to Japan's queen of polka dots, with two exhibitions a year, an Infinity Mirror Room-style installation and…
• Yayoi Museum & Takehisa Yumeji Museum 弥生美術館・竹久夢二美術館Yayoi / Nezu — Twin small museums near Todai devoted to Japanese illustration, Taisho romantic Takehisa Yumeji's dreamy beauties next door to a century of…
• YEBISU BREWERY TOKYO YEBISU BREWERY TOKYOEbisu — Yebisu beer's birthplace in Ebisu Garden Place, reopened in 2024 as a working microbrewery with a free history exhibition, guided tours with…
• Yokoyama Taikan Memorial Hall 横山大観記念館Ueno / Ikenohata — The lakeside home and garden of Yokoyama Taikan, giant of modern nihonga painting, preserved on the edge of Shinobazu Pond with his paintings…
• Yushukan Museum 遊就館Kudanshita — Japan's oldest military museum, on the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine, tracing the country's wars from the samurai era to 1945.
• Zoshigaya Missionary Museum 雑司が谷旧宣教師館Zoshigaya — A white clapboard 1907 house built by American missionary John Moody McCaleb, one of the oldest wooden Western-style homes in Tokyo, free to wander…