7 cities · 14 museums
Best Museums in Japan
Independent visitor guides with admission, hours, and collection highlights.
Quick answer
World Museum Guide covers 14 museums in Japan across 7cities — including Adachi Museum of Art, Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Hakone Open-Air Museum — with admission prices, opening hours, and highlights for each. Check each guide for current prices and free days.
Planning your visit
How many museums are in Japan?
World Museum Guide covers 14 museums in Japan .
What are the best museums in Japan?
Adachi Museum of Art, Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Kyoto National Museum.
Are museums in Japan free?
Admission varies — see individual museum pages for prices and free days.
Browse by city
Yasugi
Adachi Museum of Art
Founded by businessman Zenko Adachi in 1970, the museum is built around six interconnected Japanese gardens that change with the seasons. Adachi believed the gardens themselves should be considered living scrolls.
Tokyo
Ghibli Museum, Mitaka
The Ghibli Museum opened in 2001 to share the world of Studio Ghibli's animated films. Hayao Miyazaki himself designed the labyrinth of stairs, hidden rooms, and stained-glass windows.
Hakone
Hakone Open-Air Museum
Founded in 1969, the Hakone Open-Air Museum (Hakone Chokoku no Mori Bijutsukan) was Japan's first open-air sculpture museum, displaying around 120 works across seventy thousand square metres of mountain meadow and forest in the Hakone resort area.
Hiroshima
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Designed by Kenzo Tange and opened in 1955, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum sits within Peace Memorial Park alongside the Cenotaph and the preserved Atomic Bomb Dome — a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Kyoto
Kyoto National Museum
The Kyoto National Museum opened in 1897 in Tokuma Katayama's brick neo-Renaissance Imperial Museum building. The Heisei Chishinkan Wing by Yoshio Taniguchi opened in 2014 to display the permanent collection.
Atami
MOA Museum of Art
The MOA Museum of Art stands on a forested hillside above Atami, a hot-spring resort on the Izu Peninsula. Founded in 1982 by Mokichi Okada, it houses his collection of Japanese and East Asian art in a building designed to harmonise with the natural landscape.
Tokyo
Mori Art Museum
Mori Art Museum opened in 2003 on the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, founded by developer Minoru Mori with an emphasis on Asian contemporary art, architecture, and urban culture.
Nara
Nara National Museum
Established in 1895, the Nara National Museum specialises in Buddhist art — particularly sculpture, painting, and ritual objects from temples in the Nara region. It sits in Nara Park, surrounded by free-roaming deer and within walking distance of Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji.
Tokyo
National Art Center, Tokyo
Opened in 2007 in Roppongi, the National Art Center has no permanent collection. Instead it programmes the largest exhibition space in Japan — fourteen thousand square metres across twelve halls.
Tokyo
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Founded in 1952, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) was Japan's first national art museum. Its current building by Yoshiro Taniguchi opened in 1969 in Kitanomaru Park beside the Imperial Palace moat and was renovated in 2002.
Tokyo
National Museum of Western Art
The National Museum of Western Art opened in 1959 in Le Corbusier's only completed building in Japan. The original building and recent additions form a UNESCO-listed work of modern architecture.
Tokyo
Nezu Museum
The Nezu Museum was founded in 1941 to preserve Tobu Railway president Kaichirō Nezu's collection. Kengo Kuma's serenely austere building reopened in 2009 around the original Nezu garden.
Tokyo
teamLab Borderless
teamLab Borderless first opened in Odaiba in 2018 and reopened in 2024 in a new home at the Azabudai Hills complex in central Tokyo. Exhibits are produced by the Tokyo-based collective teamLab.
Tokyo
Tokyo National Museum
The Tokyo National Museum is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is the oldest national museum in Japan, the largest art museum in Japan, and one of the largest art museums in the world.