About us

Structure, tasks and goals

The Bavarian Natural History Collections are a public consortium of scientific research institutions, Natural History museums and a botanical garden. They are a sub-item of the Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts. All these institutions are located in Bavaria and have a wide range of tasks and goals:

The Bavarian Natural History Collections form one of the cornerstones for scientific research in natural history in Bavaria. Studies focus mainly on the past and the present diversity of animals and plants worldwide (biodiversity) as well as of the inanimate world (geodiversity). To achieve this they have large scientific collections (more than 23,000,000 specimens).

The eight museums of the Bavarian Natural History Collections, on the other hand, present exhibitions on biological and geological topics and the various relations between these topics. A main goal is to inform the visitors about the natural world around them and its history, as well as to make them aware of the importance of this environment in their own lives. Additionally, the "Museum Mensch und Natur" (Munich) also shows exhibitions about human biology.

History

The Bavarian Natural History Collections were founded 175 years ago, in 1827, by the Bavarian King Ludwig I, although some of the institutions had already been established earlier, as for example the Museum of Natural History in Bamberg, which opened in 1790. The youngest member of the Bavarian Natural History Collections is the "Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken" in Bayreuth, which joined in 1997. But even this museum is not really a new museum, as it was founded in the middle of the 19th century.

Visitors and scientists

The exhibitions of the Bavarian Natural History Collections (including the Botanical Garden Muenchen-Nymphenburg) are visited by more than 750,000 people each year, making these collections one of the important educational institutions of Bavaria. With more than 30 research scientists and the large, valuable scientific collections the Bavarian Natural History Collections are one of the most significant German research institutions in the field of Natural History.