Gallery of the Natural History Museum

he Natural History Museum in Belgrade is one of the oldest national institutions in Serbia. The Natural History Museum specializes in the protection and presentation of the mobile cultural property of nature and is inextricably linked to the cultural, scientific and educational activities in its work. In the process of collecting and storing items from nature, items acquire their real value only after being studied and scientifically valorized. Only then, their cultural and educational role can be reached.

This is the only museum of its kind in Serbia, while the richness and diversity of the specimens, as well as the achieved results in the field of museology and science make it one of the leading natural history museums in Southeastern Europe. It was officially founded in 1895 as a Jestastvenički muzej srpske zemlje (Natural Science Museum of Serbian Land).

The temporary space in several buildings hosts natural and cultural heritage comprised of 117 natural history collections with approximately 1.5 million specimens from Serbia, the Balkan Peninsula and the world. The collections with the greatest number of specimens are: mineralogical, petrologic, collections of fossil and recent mollusks, insects, birds, mammals, as well as the General Herbarium of the Balkan Peninsula. All these collections have outstanding scientific and museological value.

The Natural History Museum has been directing its scientific, educational and exhibitioning activities to the promotion and presentation of biological and geological diversity and its protection. One of the important activities is also raising environmental awareness of the general population about the need to preserve the unity of natural heritage.