The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Almost all space and aircraft on display are originals or backups to the originals.
The National Museum of African Art is a part of the Smithsonian Institution. Located on the National Mall, the museum specializes in African art and culture. It was established as a private museum in 1964, and officially became a part of the Smithsonian Institution in August 1979.
Artwork in the museum comes from all parts of Africa, but most of it is from the region south of the Sahara. Represented countries include Mali, Cameroon, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Ghana, and Morocco, among others. Most of the items in the collection are sculptures, masks, furniture, and musical instruments made from wood.
The The National Museum of American History collects, preserves and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. Among the items on display are the original Star-Spangled Banner and Archie Bunker's chair. The museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution and located on the National Mall.
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere. The collection includes more than 800,000 objects, as well as a photographic archive of 125,000 images.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, along with the Freer Gallery of Art, are an Asian art museum that form the national museums of Asian art of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collection includes 9,917 Asian art objects.
The Sackler Gallery frequently hosts international exhibitions highlighting aspects of Asian art.
The Freer Gallery contains art from the Mediterranean, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Muslim world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as American art. It houses 25,518 objects spanning 6,000 years of history, including but not limited to ancient Egyptian stone sculpture and wooden objects, ancient Near Eastern ceramics and metalware, Chinese paintings and ceramics, Korean pottery and porcelain, Japanese Byōbu, Persian manuscripts, and Buddhist sculpture. Collections span from the Neolithic to modern eras.
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.
The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, that focuses on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to the 21st century. It is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that was begun in 1859 on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Anacostia Museum is a Smithsonian Institution museum in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Its focus is the national history and culture of African Americans, for presentation to scholars and to all visitors—domestic and international.
The National Postal Museum located opposite Union Station was established through joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution and opened in 1993. The museum is located across in the building that once served as the Main Post Office of Washington, D.C. from 1914, when it was constructed, until 1986. The museum houses many interactive displays about the history of the United States Postal Service and of mail service around the world. Also on display is a vast collection of stamps.
The Smithsonian National Zoological Park commonly known as the National Zoo, is one of the oldest zoos in the United States, and as part of the Smithsonian Institution, does not charge admission. The National Zoo has two campuses. The first is a 163-acre (66 ha) urban park located in northwest Washington, D.C. The other campus is the 3,200-acre (1,300 ha) Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI; formerly known as the Conservation and Research Center) in Front Royal, Virginia. Altogether, the two facilities contain 2,000 animals of 400 different species.
