Overview & visitor information
The American Museum of Natural History is one of New York's largest scientific institutions, occupying a multi-building campus opposite Central Park on the Upper West Side. Its collections and exhibitions span paleontology, zoology, anthropology, geology and astronomy, making the museum a sequence of distinct worlds rather than a single gallery visit.
The fossil halls are the best-known family draw, with mounted dinosaurs and other prehistoric vertebrates arranged to show evolutionary relationships. Elsewhere, the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life centers on a suspended blue-whale model, while habitat dioramas combine animal specimens, painted environments and meticulous foreground work.
The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation adds visible collections, immersive spaces and a dramatic atrium to the historic complex. Together with the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, it shows how the museum connects public display with active research, specimen care and science education.
