Tank Museum

Tank Museum

The Tank Museum, formerly known as the Bovington Tank Museum, is a museum dedicated to the collection of armoured fighting vehicles, located in the Bovington area of Dorset in the southwest of England.

Bovington was originally a training and maintenance camp for the British armoured forces. In 1916, the British War Office established a training camp here to train tank crews, making it the birthplace of British tank application technology. In 1923, British writer Rudyard Kipling visited the Bovington Tank Corps training camp and saw some of the old tanks preserved there, suggesting that a tank museum be built on the site. However, the collection truly began to grow rapidly after World War II: the British military sent a large number of decommissioned tanks along with captured enemy armoured vehicles here for preservation. Since 1947, the Tank Museum has been open to the public.

The museum traces the history of tanks and houses nearly 300 various tanks and armoured vehicles from 26 countries around the world, making it the largest tank museum in the world and the second-largest armoured vehicle museum. The current exhibition space is divided into five sections: the World War I Hall, the Interwar Hall, the World War II Hall, the Post-War Hall, and the British Steel Hall. Among the numerous collections are some particularly valuable war relics: the world's only operational German Tiger tank from WWII and the oldest surviving tank in the world—the British Mark I tank from World War I.

Tank Museum

Must-visit reason: The world’s largest tank museum

Continent where the attraction is located: Europe【Europe】

Country/region where the attraction is located: Britain[Britain]

Province/state where the attraction is located: Dorset County [Dorset County]