The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum Network

When people think of the Smithsonian Institute Network of Museums, they often picture a single location with specific exhibits. However, the Smithsonian Institution is a vast network of 19 museums and galleries across the United States and even extends globally. This extensive reach makes the Smithsonian a resource far beyond a typical museum.

Many visitors associate the Smithsonian with specific exhibits or fields of science, such as natural history or space exploration. However, the Smithsonian’s network of museums covers a broad spectrum of topics, showcasing the arts, humanities, and sciences.

What sets the Smithsonian Institute apart is its ability to curate a diverse range of exhibits and events that represent human history’s rich tapestry. This diversity allows the Institution to become more than just a national museum; it becomes a shared cultural heritage site and even a resource for diplomacy.

Through its global projects and partnerships, the Smithsonian builds connections that bridge cultural divides, fostering relationships that bring people together.

The Smithsonian Institute Museum Complex

The Smithsonian Institute’s Museum Network consists of 21 distinct museums and comprises the world’s largest museum complex:

Anacostia Community Museum

The Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum documents and interprets the impact of social and cultural issues on contemporary urban communities. Established in 1967 as the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, it served first as a Smithsonian outreach museum situated in one of the Washington, D.C.’s largely African American neighborhoods and later evolved into a museum which documented, preserved, and interpreted African American history from local and community history perspectives

Arts and Industries Building

The Arts and Industries Building (AIB) is the Smithsonian’s second oldest building and a national hub for creative exchange between ideas and objects from our past and our future. AIB opened in 1881 as the country’s first U.S. National Museum, an architectural icon in the heart of the National Mall. Its soaring halls introduced millions of Americans to wonders about to change the world—Edison’s lightbulb, the first telephone, Apollo rockets.

Over the years, AIB was the origin and incubator for almost every other Smithsonian museum, debuting everything from dinosaurs to rocket ships. Never fully renovated, the building closed completely in 2004 due to structural concerns before reopening in 2021 with the landmark FUTURES exhibition.

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is the nation’s only museum dedicated exclusively to historic and contemporary design, with a collection of more than 215,000 design objects spanning 30 centuries. From ancient textiles and works on paper to icons of modern design and cutting-edge technologies, Cooper Hewitt’s collection serves as inspiration for creative work of all kinds and tells the story of design’s paramount importance in improving our world.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is a leading voice for contemporary art and culture and provides a national platform for the art and artists of our time. The museum offers an in-depth collection of modern masters and emerging artists; cutting-edge films; outdoor sculptures; temporary exhibitions highlighting major artists, important trends, and historical developments.

National Air and Space Museum

One of the top destinations in Washington D.C.,The National Air and Space Museum maintains the world’s largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft. It is also a vital center for historical research on aviation and spaceflight and related science and technology, and home to the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, which performs original research.

The flagship building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., houses many of the icons of flight, including the original 1903 Wright Flyer, Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1, John Glenn’s Friendship 7 spacecraft, and a lunar rock sample that visitors can touch.

The museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, in Chantilly, Virginia, houses many more artifacts in an open, hangar-like setting, including a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, and space shuttle Discovery.

National Museum of African American History and Culture

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 40,000 artifacts. The Museum opened to the public on September 24, 2016, as the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

National Museum of African Art

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art is the only national museum in the United States dedicated to the collection, exhibition, conservation and study of the arts of Africa. The museum’s collection of nearly 12,000 African art objects represents nearly every area of the continent of Africa and contains a variety of media and art forms—textiles, photography, sculpture, pottery, painting and jewelry and video art—dating from ancient to contemporary times. The museum also has the largest publicly held collection of contemporary African art in the United States, and is home to the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives for the study of the arts, cultures, and history of Africa.

National Museum of American History

Through incomparable collections, rigorous research, and dynamic public outreach, the National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center, explores the infinite richness and complexity of American history. The museum helps people understand the past in order to make sense of the present and shape a more humane future. The collections include the Star-Spangled Banner, First Ladies gowns, a Samuel Morse telegraph, locomotives, Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers, an Alexander Graham Bell telephone, American-made quilts, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, Duke Ellington’s sheet music, and presidential artifacts.

National Museum of the American Latino

For centuries, diverse Latino communities have played foundational roles in building the United States and shaping its national culture. Their rich histories and legacies predate the nation’s establishment. They are deeply rooted in this country’s pursuit of democracy, freedom, multiculturalism, and economic opportunity. Their stories and perspectives deepen our understanding of the United States and what it means to be American.

On December 27, 2020, legislation passed calling for the Smithsonian to establish the National Museum of the American Latino. The new museum will be the cornerstone for visitors to learn how Latinos have contributed and continue to contribute to U.S. art, history, culture, and science. Additionally, it will serve as a gateway to exhibitions, collections, and programming at other Smithsonian museums, research centers, and traveling exhibition services.

In 2022, the National Museum of the American Latino opened the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National American History Museum, making the gallery the very first dedicated museum space on the National Mall celebrating the U.S. Latino experience.

National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery tells the story of America by portraying the people who shape the nation’s history, development, and culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts, and new media, the Portrait Gallery presents poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives form our national identity. The Portrait Gallery’s collection holds more than 23,000 works, including the only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House. PORTAL, the National Portrait Gallery’s Scholarly Center, promotes the study of American portraiture and visual biography.

National Postal Museum

The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum (NPM) is dedicated to the preservation, study and presentation of postal history and philately. The museum showcases the largest and most comprehensive collection of stamps and philatelic material in the world—including postal stationery, vehicles used to transport the mail, mailboxes, meters, cards and letters, and postal materials that predate the use of stamps—and makes this rich history available to scholars, philatelists, collectors, and visitors from around the world.

With more than 40,000 volumes and manuscript holdings, the National Postal Museum’s Library Research Center—a branch of Smithsonian Libraries—is among the world’s largest philatelic and postal history research facilities. The library is open to the public by appointment only.

American Women’s History Museum

The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum expands the story of America through the often-untold accounts and accomplishments of women—individually and collectively—to better understand our past and inspire our future.

Through new scholarship, diverse viewpoints, and innovative forms of exhibition, storytelling, and participation, we inspire the next generation to create a more equitable world.

Women’s history is American history. This is the story of America.

Smithsonian Gardens

Smithsonian Gardens enriches the Smithsonian experience through exceptional gardens, horticultural exhibits, collections, and education. Established in 1972 to maintain the museum grounds, Smithsonian Gardens extends the museum experience in a public garden setting, inspiring visitors with innovative displays and educating them about horticulture, plants, the natural environment, and artistic design. The many gardens that surround the Smithsonian museums along the National Mall act as “outdoor museums,” designed to complement the museums they border.

In addition to maintaining more than 180 acres of gardens, landscapes and grounds, Smithsonian Gardens operates a 64,000-square-foot off-site greenhouse facility where thousands of annual and perennial plants for the Smithsonian gardens are grown.

Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle)

Completed in 1855, the Castle is the Institute’s signature building. The Castle closed Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, for its first major renovation in more than 50 years. But even when the Castle is closed, you can plan your Smithsonian visit at our Virtual Visitor Center and explore the Castle online.

Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute leads the Smithsonian’s global effort to save species, better understand ecosystems, and train future generations of conservationists. Scientists from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute also work in field stations around the world. More than 200 scientists and their partners in more than 30 countries create and share knowledge to aid in the survival and recovery of species and their habitats. Findings from these studies provide critical data for the management of captive populations and valuable insights for the conservation and management of wild populations.

National Museum of Natural History

The world’s most popular natural history museum is dedicated to understanding the natural world and our place in it. Delve into the fascinating story of our planet, from its fiery beginnings through billions of years of transformation, and explore life on Earth through exhibitions and activities, collection objects and research that happens in the lab and in the field. The museum is larger than 18 football fields and is home to the largest natural history collection in the world.

National Portrait Gallery

With visual arts, performing arts, and new media, the Portrait Gallery introduces you to the people who have shaped the country—poets, presidents, actors, activists, visionaries, villains…and everyone in between. Its collection weaves together story and biography from precolonial times to the present to tell the American story.

National Postal Museum

Located in the historic D.C. City Post Office next to the restored Union Station, the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum showcases the largest and most comprehensive collection of stamps and philatelic material in the world—including postal stationery, vehicles used to transport the mail, mailboxes, meters, cards and letters, and postal materials that predate the use of stamps. Visitors can walk along a Colonial post road, ride with the mail in a stagecoach, browse through a small town post office from the 1920s, receive free stamps to start a collection and more.

Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum dedicated to exhibiting American contemporary craft, celebrating makers taking both innovative and time-honored approaches to their work. The Renwick Gallery is located steps from the White House in the heart of historic federal Washington. This National Historic Landmark was designed by architect James Renwick Jr. in 1858 and was the first building in the United States built specifically to be an art museum.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

Named after the Smithsonian’s 8th Secretary, the underground building’s copper domed entrance is on Jefferson Drive between the “Castle” and the Freer Gallery of the National Museum of Asian Art. The Ripley Center houses the Smithsonian Associates and the Discovery Theater and connects underground to the African Art Museum and the Sackler Gallery of the National Museum of Asian Art.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art includes the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The Sackler Gallery features both permanent and temporary exhibitions from ancient times to the present. The museum is home to an incomparable collection of art, including some of the most important ancient Chinese jades and bronzes in the world. In addition to the exhibitions on display, the galleries feature innovative programming for visitors of all ages, such as lectures, concerts, films, and podcasts that enhance and extend the visit.

Smithsonian Institution Castle Building

Completed in 1855, the Castle is the Institute’s signature building. The Castle closed Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, for its first major renovation in more than 50 years. But even when the Castle is closed, you can plan your Smithsonian visit at their Virtual Visitor Center and explore the Castle online.

Smithsonian Gardens

The many gardens that surround the Smithsonian museums are a “museum without walls.” All have been designed to complement the museums they border and to enhance the overall museum experience of learning, appreciation, and enjoyment. See the map of all Smithsonian Gardens.

Smithsonian Institute Global Projects

Additionally, the Smithsonian Institute’s worldwide network of museums and research facilities Below are just a few of the programs and projects being done across the entire globe.

Zostera Experimental Network

The Zostera Experimental Network (ZEN) is a global collaborative network of scientists studying the structure and functioning eelgrass (Zostera marina) ecosystems, the world’s most widespread marine plant. ZEN is funded by a US National Science Foundation grant and draws together a partnership of scientists from twelve countries. ZEN is conducting experiments and surveys that aim to quantify how resources and grazing interactively affect biomass, production, and trophic transfer in these ecologically and economically important seagrass ecosystems along natural gradients in biodiversity and environmental change.

American Spaces Assessment and Redesign Project

Through the American Spaces Assessment and Redesign Project, Smithsonian experts in education, exhibition design, and public engagement are working with the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs to help connect international audiences with American culture and values at more than 700 locations worldwide.

In short, the Smithsonian Institute is so much more than a singular museum, or even a localized museum complex.  The institute is a nexus for global sharing of ideas, discovery, science, culture and identity.  We’re grateful to maintain multiple tours that include the Smithsonian as a portion of travel itineraries.

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