Sanming Museum

Sanming Museum

Sanming Museum serves as a national defense education base.

The new building of Sanming Museum was officially opened on November 20, 2012. The total investment in the construction of the museum was 200 million yuan, covering a land area of 3,000 square meters, with a building area of 10,000 square meters and an exhibition area of 7,000 square meters. The museum currently houses a collection of over 2,300 cultural relics, including 3 first-grade relics, 28 second-grade relics, and 985 third-grade relics.

The new museum features five exhibition halls (zones): "Hakka Homeland," "Red Sanming," "Museum Collections," "Reform and Opening-Up: Forging Brilliance — The New Sanming in the 40 Years of Reform and Opening-Up — A Photographic Exhibition Commemorating 40 Years of Sanming’s Reform and Opening-Up," and a temporary exhibition area. These display nearly 1,500 cultural relics and thousands of photographs, presenting a comprehensive overview of Sanming’s history from 180,000 years ago to modern times.

The "Hakka Homeland" exhibition hall primarily introduces the various periods of Sanming's history, from the dawn of prehistoric civilization to recorded history, highlighting the pioneering journey of Han migrants from the Central Plains to Fujian. It also covers the formation and development of the Hakka people and the unique essence of Hakka folk culture.

The "Red Sanming" exhibition focuses on how, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the people of Sanming fought bravely and made successive sacrifices, composing heroic and magnificent revolutionary chapters with their blood and lives. It showcases their significant contributions and immense sacrifices toward the victory of the Chinese revolution and the birth of New China.

The "Museum Collections" exhibition brings together over 200 fine pieces of ceramics, metalwork, stone carvings, bamboo, and wooden artifacts from the museum’s holdings.

Since the opening of the new museum, to support the pilot work of establishing a national public cultural service system demonstration zone and expand social service functions, along with offering free admission, the museum launched the "Four Ones" and "Benefit-the-People Touring Exhibitions" brand activities. These include one lecture, one temporary exhibition, one urban touring exhibition, and one free artifact appraisal and restoration consultation session each month. The "Benefit-the-People Touring Exhibitions" involve creating content each year based on major historical events that took place locally. Through field research and data studies, comprehensive electronic materials suitable for download and exhibition by counties are produced. For example, the 2015 "Photographic Exhibition of the Northern Expedition Anti-Japanese Vanguard Entering Fujian" was downloaded and exhibited in over 40 sessions across counties, reaching villages, schools, communities, military camps, and factories, achieving significant social benefits. Since implementing free admission in 2008, the museum has received approximately 150,000 visitors annually.

A free admission policy is in place, with the museum open six days a week from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Two free guided tours are offered daily at 10:00–10:30 AM and 3:00–3:30 PM. The annual budget for free admission services is 800,000 yuan, mainly used for museum upgrades and daily maintenance. In 2015, the museum hosted over 500 group visits from government agencies, military units, enterprises, schools, subdistrict offices, and communities, as well as over 400,000 individual visitors, including tourists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

The museum has been successively rated as a "National Second-Class Museum," "Provincial Second-Class Museum," and "Provincial National Defense Education Base," becoming an important window for promoting Sanming’s history and culture, and a model for providing public cultural services to citizens.

Further Reading:

· National Second-Class Museum of China