In the 75 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, museums in Jiangsu Province have flourished thanks to various initiatives, making museum visits an increasingly popular part of everyday life.   

The province has consistently enhanced both the quantity and quality of its museums. By the end of 2023, Jiangsu had 355 museums, including 26 national first-grade museums. Of these, 313 museums, or 88.2%, offer free admissions to the public.  

Jiangsu also boasts a vast collection of cultural relics, with 1.21 million artifacts housed across its museums. Among these, there are 3,927 first-grade cultural relics and 21,567 second-grade ones, providing visitors with a panoramic view of the province’s cultural characteristics and the broader evolution of Chinese civilization. 

This year’s highlights include “The Glory of the Aegean Sea: The Exhibition of Ancient Greek Civilization” at the Nanjing Museum, the “I am Ashurbanipal: King of Assyria” exhibition at the Suzhou Museum, and the “Antiques from Ancient Syria” exhibition at the Nanjing City Wall Museum. Alongside domestic relics, these exhibits foster cross-civilization exchange and mutual learning. 

Jiangsu’s museums have led the country in visitor numbers for many years. In 2023, the province recorded 120 million museum visitors, setting a new record. This upward trend has continued into 2024, with the Nanjing Museum surpassing its total visitor count from last year by August.  

The province also supports the application of new technologies, such as holography, artificial intelligence and virtual reality. As a result, visitors now enjoy more visual, tangible, participatory and interactive ways of exploring cultural relics and their stories. 

Notably, Nanjing’s Deji Art Museum has broken new ground by employing cutting-edge technology in the digitization of cultural artifacts. The museum’s An Era in Jinling: A Digital Art Experience allows visitors to step into the ancient painting of Jinling, the ancient name of Nanjing, in a first-person perspective, interacting with the characters in the artwork.