Natural History Museum, Vienna

With some 30 million objects in its collections, the Natural History Museum, Vienna (Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is one of the largest museums in Austria and one of the country's largest non-university research institutions. Its earliest collections are more than 250 years old.

Visitors see only a fraction of that holding: more than 100,000 objects spread across 39 exhibition rooms covering about 8,460 square metres. Behind the galleries, more than 60 scientists and many guest researchers carry out basic research in the human sciences, earth sciences and life sciences. The museum also keeps a herbarium, whose specimens are cited under the code W.

Emperor Franz Joseph I founded the museum in 1889. Its building, designed by the architects Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, is a listed heritage monument. The museum draws more than half a million visitors a year.