Chinese Navy Museum 中国人民解放军海军博物馆

On the Qingdao waterfront at No. 8 Laiyang Road in Shinan District, the Chinese Navy Museum is the only military museum in the country given over to the story of the Chinese navy. It covers around 94,000 square metres of land and a further 150,000 square metres of sea, opened in October 1989 and reopened in June 2021 after a major rebuilding.

The collection numbers more than 10,000 objects, with over 4,000 exhibits on show across three zones: indoors, on the water and on land. The main building holds the four-gallery permanent exhibition, "Striving Toward the Sea", told in three chapters that follow the navy from its hard beginnings, through reform and opening, to the present push for a world-class fleet.

Outside, the dock area is given to honoured ships, while the land zone displays small surface craft, naval aviation, marine and coastal defence equipment. The museum is rated a national first-class museum and a national base for patriotism and defence education, and it sets out to explain the sea to its visitors as much as to commemorate the navy.

Don't miss

• Changjiang, a 1:1 copy of the ship Mao Zedong travelled on
• Jinan, the first domestically built destroyer, open to walk through
• Long March No. 1, the country's first nuclear submarine
• Great Wall 200, a test submarine for underwater rocket launches
• Shrapnel removed from hero Mai Xiande's head, shown with his story

Visiting tips

Reserve ahead through the museum's WeChat mini-program, website or on-site machines; entry is by real-name booking up to seven days in advance. There is no public car park, so take a bus to Lu Xun Park or metro Line 3 to Renmin Huitang and walk south.