Guide to San Francisco Museums and Galleries

San Francisco features a myriad of museums covering many exciting and innovative topics. Visitors can do everything from explore hundreds of years of history to catching a glimpse of what the future has in store. The number of museums in San Francisco can certainly be daunting, so the help of a guide can really come in hand. Here are just a few museums of reputation located around the town.

Science and History

The Chinese Historical Society of America Museum and Learning Center--Experience Chinese culture first hand and see amazingly preserved artifacts dating back to the 1800's, including a fourteen-foot redwood sampan, a parade dragon head and a Buddhist alter. The society also sponsors a number of programs throughout the year, such as lectures, book parties and travelling exhibits.

California Academy of Sciences--Explore two floors of natural history and aquarium exhibits, featuring penguins, snakes, fish and corals from around the globe. Travellers can also enjoy hands-on demonstrations, meet the biologist sessions and animal feedings.

Hiller Aviation Museum--Step into the past as you look above and see planes dating back before the Wright Brothers above your head. This museum's 53,000-foot area has airplanes from throughout history spanning the entire ceiling. There are also a number of opportunities to see the planes up close and inside.

Arts

Berkeley Art Museum--Galleries in thie museum feature everything from Neolithic Chinese pottery to contemporary multimedia pieces. The museum features an extensive collection including the works of Picasso, Kandinsky, Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Beckman, and others.

De Young Museum--This museum integrates art, architecture and landscaping all at once and features American art from the 17th through 20th century, along with the art of the native Americas, Africa and the Pacific.

Museum of Modern Art--See one of the world's most innovative collections of contemporary art featuring painting, sculpture, media arts, photography, architecture and design. With it's slanted, striped skylight tower, this is one building you are sure to notice.

Asian Art Museum--This museum features over 14,000 artifacts and spans 6,000 years of Asian history in one of the largest collections of Asian art in the world. There are also a number of programs for both adults and children.

Children & Families

Bay Area Discovery Museum--Catch plastic crabs in nets in Bay Hall's life-size fishing boat, create art in Studios 5 and 10, design multimedia projects in the Media Clubhouse or see creatures in the Science Lab in this interactive indoor-outdoor museum.

Exploratorium--Known as the "best science museum in the world," the Exploratorium features over 650 hands-on exhibits exploring the fields of science, art and technology.

The Tech Museum of Innovation--This museum feature over 240 hands-on exhibits teaching about the technologies that affect daily life. Kids can play at the inventor's workbench, make a movie in the Digital Studio, build a microchip or create a self-portrait using a 3-D lase scanner. There is also an 82-foot domed IMAX theater, where visitors can scale Mount Everest or explore the ocean daily.

Cartoon Art Museum--See 6,000 original peices of cartoon art in the nation's only museum dedicated to cartoons. Featuring everything from children's book illustration to graphic novel work, this museum caters to the young as well as the young at heart.