About the Museum

The National Museum of Indonesia (Indonesian: Museum Nasional Indonesia) is an archeological, historical, ethnological, and geographical museum located in Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, right on the west side of Merdeka Square. Popularly known as the Elephant Museum (Indonesian: Museum Gajah) after the elephant statue in its forecourt, its broad collections cover all of Indonesia's territory and almost all of its history. The museum has endeavoured to preserve Indonesia's heritage for two centuries. The museum is regarded as one of the most complete and the best in Indonesia, as well as one of the finest museums in Southeast Asia. The museum has preserved about 141,000 objects, ranging from prehistoric artifacts to archeology, numismatics, ceramics, ethnography, history and geography collections. It has comprehensive collections of stone statues of the classical Hindu-Buddhist period of ancient Java and Sumatra as well as quite extensive collections of Asian ceramics. A fire affected some rooms of the old building on 16 September 2023. This led to the museum being closed for renovation until October 2024.