Administered by the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of Natural History, is located on the National Mall in Washington DC. The museum itself is open 364 days a year and is admission free. The museum holds a collection of over 500 million pieces. These pieces vary include: plants, fossils, minerals, rocks, animals, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts. The museum is the second most popular of the Smithsonian museums, and is also the home to about 185 professional natural history scientists. This is the largest group of scientists dedicated to the study of natural and cultural history in the world.

The museum opened its doors, March 17th 1910, it was then known as the United States National Museum. It provided the ever growing Smithsonian Institution with more space for collections and research. It wasn’t until 1911 that the building was fully completed by Hornblower and Marshall.

The National Gem and Mineral Collection is one of the most significant collections of its kind in the world. The collection includes some of the most famous pieces of gems and minerals including the Hope Diamond and the Star of Asia Sapphire, one of the largest sapphires in the world. There are currently over 15,000 individual gems in the collection, as well as 350,000 minerals and 300,000 samples of rock and ore specimens. Additionally, the Smithsonian’s National Gem and Mineral Collection houses approximately 35,000 meteorites, which is considered to be one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in the world.

The museum as seen from the National Mall, the Old Post Office Building visible in the distance. The collection is displayed in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals, one of the many galleries in the Museum of Natural History. Some of the most important donors are Washington A. Roebling, the man who built the Brooklyn Bridge, who gave 16,000 specimens to the collection, Frederick A. Canfield, who donated 9,000 specimens to the collection, and Dr. Isaac Lea, who donated the base of the museum’s collection of 1312 gems and minerals.

The museum has an IMAX Theater for feature-length films, and the Discovery Room, a family- and student-friendly hands-on activity room on the first floor. In the lower level there is a bird exhibit with all the migratory and native birds to Washington D.C.