Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

About Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and cultural history museum in the western United States, holding tens of millions of specimens and artifacts across its collections. It opened in 1913 in Exposition Park, and the original Beaux-Arts building, with its domed rotunda and marble columns, is a landmark in its own right. Over the decades the museum has grown well beyond that first hall, but the historic core still anchors the visit.

The best-known draw is the dinosaur collection. The Dinosaur Hall displays mounted skeletons including a series of Tyrannosaurus rex specimens at different growth stages, something few museums can show. Beyond the fossils, there are halls devoted to African and North American mammals shown in habitat dioramas, a gem and mineral vault, an insect zoo with live specimens, and the Nature Gardens outside, a few acres of planted grounds that function as an urban wildlife habitat. The Becoming Los Angeles exhibition traces the history of the city and region, which gives the place a cultural side alongside the natural science.

The museum sits in Exposition Park near the University of Southern California, roughly a few miles south of downtown Los Angeles, and is reachable by the Metro light rail as well as by car, with paid parking on site. Most people spend two to three hours here, more if you have children working through the hands-on areas. It pairs easily with other attractions in the same park, so it's worth checking current opening days and any timed-entry arrangements before you go, since these can change with special exhibitions.