Four hundred million years in eight galleries, from the Devonian to the handover, with a full-size fishing junk in the middle.
The museum’s permanent exhibition, The Hong Kong Story, ran from 2001 and was the single best introduction to the territory available — eight galleries covering 400 million years, from Devonian rock through the folk cultures of the four main ethnic groups, the Opium Wars, the colony, the Japanese occupation and the handover.
Its strength was reconstruction at full scale: a complete Hakka village dwelling, a fishing junk, a 1930s Central street of shopfronts you could walk into, a tram, and a cinema showing period newsreels.
The closure
It closed in October 2020 for a comprehensive revamp, with the museum stating the content needed updating after twenty years.
Since then the site has run interim exhibitions, including a condensed version of the Hong Kong story, alongside temporary shows. The full replacement has been delayed and the reopening date has moved.
The revamp has been the subject of public discussion given the political context and the fact that a national-history framing has been more prominent in Hong Kong’s museums since 2020. What the new permanent exhibition contains, when it opens, will be worth reading about.
Check the current position on the museum’s site before travelling. This entry says so rather than describing galleries that may not be there.
What is worth it regardless
Entry to the permanent collection is free; special exhibitions are ticketed and modest.
The museum sits in a cluster: the Hong Kong Science Museum is next door, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art is on the waterfront twenty minutes west and reopened in 2019 after a major refit — free, with a strong Chinese antiquities and Hong Kong art collection, and a very good harbour-facing café.
The alternatives for history
Tai Kwun in Central, the converted Central Police Station and Victoria Prison, covers the colonial legal and penal history in situ and is free.
Kowloon Walled City Park has a small but excellent exhibition on the Walled City.
Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Sha Tin covers Cantonese opera, Bruce Lee and Hong Kong popular culture, and is a half-hour on the MTR.
Hong Kong Maritime Museum at Central Pier 8 is small, well done and often overlooked.
Practicalities
Closed Tuesdays. Free permanent entry.
East Tsim Sha Tsui station exit P2, or Hung Hom.
More Museums
M+
Asia's first global museum of visual culture, in a Herzog and de Meuron building with a screen on the side of it.
Hong Kong Palace Museum
Nine hundred objects on long loan from Beijing's Forbidden City, in a building shaped like an inverted ritual vessel.
Tai Kwun
The former Central Police Station, magistracy and prison, restored into a free arts and heritage complex.