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 (areas): "Hakka Homeland," "Red Sanming," "Museum Collection," "Reform and Opening-Up: Forging Brilliance – The New Sanming in a Leap Forward – A Photographic Exhibition Celebrating 40 Years of Reform and Opening-Up in Sanming," 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 region’s history—from the dawn of prehistoric civilization to the recorded eras—highlighting the arduous pioneering journey of Han migrants from the Central Plains into 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 narrating 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 founding of New China.

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

Since its opening, to support the pilot work of creating a national public cultural service system demonstration zone and to expand its social service functions, the new museum has combined free public access with the launch of branded activities such as the “Four Ones” and “Benefit-the-People Touring Exhibitions.” These include organizing one lecture, one temporary exhibition, one urban touring exhibition, and one free cultural relic appraisal and restoration consultation session every month. The “Benefit-the-People Touring Exhibitions” involve designing and creating content each year based on major historical events that took place locally. Through field research and data studies, comprehensive electronic documents suitable for downloading and exhibiting in various counties are produced—for example, the “Photographic Exhibition of the Northern Expedition Anti-Japanese Vanguard Entering Fujian” in 2015, which was downloaded and exhibited in over 40 sessions across various counties, reaching villages, schools, communities, military camps, and factories, achieving excellent social impact. Since adopting the free admission policy in 2008, the museum has received approximately 150,000 visitors annually.

The museum implements a free admission policy, opening 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 free admission funding amounts to 800,000 yuan, mainly used for museum upgrades, routine maintenance, and other aspects. In 2015, the museum hosted over 500 group visits from government agencies, military units, enterprises, schools, subdistrict offices, and communities, serving more than 400,000 visitors from all walks of life, 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 disseminating the history and culture of Sanming and a model for providing public cultural services to citizens.

Further Reading:

· National Second-Class Museum of China