Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, Hanoi: A Guide to Visiting

Vietnam is home to many ethnic groups, and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is where their ways of life are brought together in one place. Clothes, tools, musical instruments, ritual objects and whole houses tell how people across the country, and across Southeast Asia, live, work and celebrate.

Why the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology matters

The museum belongs to the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences and is part of the country’s system of national museums. Its job goes beyond display: it researches, collects and conserves objects and records about the country’s peoples, and presents them through exhibitions, performances and education programmes.

Planning started in the 1980s, when the country was still recovering from war. The Prime Minister formally established the museum in October 1995, and it was inaugurated on 12 November 1997, during the summit of French-speaking nations in Hanoi, in the presence of Vice President Nguyễn Thị Bình and French President Jacques Chirac.

What you will see

The museum is spread over three exhibition areas, so plan your route before you start.

• The Bronze Drum building (Trống Đồng). This two-storey building, open since 1997, presents the ethnic groups of Vietnam.
• The Architecture Garden. Built between 1998 and 2006, the outdoor garden mainly presents ten folk buildings from ten ethnic groups. Among them are a Bahnar communal house, an Ede house, Cham, Viet, Tay, Yao, Hmong and Hani houses, and tomb houses of the Giarai and Cotu.
• The Kite building (Cánh Diều). This four-storey building, started in 2007, opened its first exhibition at the end of 2013. It looks beyond Vietnam’s borders, above all to the peoples of Southeast Asia.

The Bahnar communal house shows how much care went into the garden. According to the museum, a team of forty Bahnar people from Kon Rbang village in Kon Tum built it, modelling it on their own village’s communal house from the early 1920s. In a Bahnar village, such a house was where guests were received, rituals took place and the men gathered.

Local tip The museum also hosts performances, including water puppetry at weekends and special programmes at Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Check its official website for the current programme before you go.

Visiting respectfully

The museum’s rules are in the table above. The main points: leave larger bags in the designated place but keep your money and valuables with you, do not bring food or drink, keep your voice down, and never touch, sit on or move the exhibits. Flash photography is not allowed in the galleries, and in the garden you should not climb trees or pick flowers.

Some of the houses in the garden are ritual buildings, such as the tomb houses. Treat them as you would a place of worship, and follow any signs about where you can and cannot go.

When to go

The museum is open every day except Mondays and the Lunar New Year holiday; see the table for hours. Because the garden is outdoors, a dry day makes the visit more comfortable. If you want a guide, the museum offers guided tours in Vietnamese and in foreign languages for a fee per group, and bringing a camera also carries a fee. Both are listed in the table.

Getting there

The museum is on Nguyễn Văn Huyên Street in Nghĩa Đô. A taxi or ride-hailing car from the Old Quarter is the simplest way to get there.

Combining it with nearby sights

The museum is not part of the historic cluster around Ba Đình, so it works well as a separate half day. If you have more time the same day, a taxi ride takes you on to the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long or the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum area.