Stockholm has one of the highest numbers of museums to visit in the world.

With a figure of around 100 museums it offers a wide variety of cultural and interesting subjects to explore and has around 9 million visitors yearly.

The National Museum

Sweden’s largest art collection with around 16.000 paintings and around 30.000 art pieces will be found on The National Museum. The foundation of the collection was started during the reign of Gustav Vasa in the16th century and has overtime come to include works by Rembrandt and Antoine Watteau but also a big part of the Swedish art inheritage by artists like Anders Zorn and Carl Larsson.

An interesting fact is that a large portion of the collection comes from Sweden’s time as a Superpower during the 17th and 18th century when the Swedish army raided and plundered other European cities.

Skansen

The world’s first outdoor museum was opened in 1891 on Djurgården in Stockholm.

Today it is a combined zoo and museum with around 140 different buildings from around Scandinavia with the oldest one dated from the 13th century.

The animals are mostly animals you would find in the Scandinavian wildlife with bears, wolfs, elks and wolverines but also elephants, penguins and seals are presented.

It also has an impressive aquarium/terrarium which contains monkeys, sharks, spiders, crocodiles and other animals.

The unique thing is that you are allowed to pet some of the animals.

Vasa Museum

One of Stockholm’s biggest tourist attractions is the Vasa museum.

It contains a Swedish warship which was built in the early 17th century but foundered and sunk only one mile into her maiden voyage in 1628.

She was salvaged with a more or less intact hull in 1961 and moved to its current location in 1990. It is the only almost completely preserved ship from the 17th century in the world and have around 800.000 visitors every year.

Along with the ship several items like clothes, cannons, coins and cutlery was retrieved and is on display in the museum.

Museum of Medieval Stockholm

The museum contains more then 850 pieces; all found in the occupation level of medieval Stockholm and together they make up the story of how Stockholm was founded and rose towards the city it is today. The museum was built after the archeological investigations in 1978-1980 under the Riksdagshus found parts of the Town Wall that Gustav Vasa had had built in 1530s and the medieval churchyard of Helgeandshuset. The museum was honored by the presentation of the European Museum of the Year award in 1988.

The Royal Armory Museum

Sweden’s oldest museum was founded 1628 when King Gustav II Adolf commanded that his clothes from his wars in Poland would be kept “in the royal armory as an eternal reminder.” Among the items on display is, except Gustav II Adolf´s shirts ,also his horse from the battle in Lutzen in 1632 where he fell. Furthermore you can see the muddy uniform of King Karl XII in which he fell in Norway 1718 and a lot of other historic items from Sweden’s royal house up till the present royal family.

The museum is placed in the basement of the royal castle

Swedish Museum of Natural History

The museums collections are well known all over the world and contains more then 9 million animals, plants, minerals, mushrooms and other geological and biological specimens. Founded in 1819, it has an IMAX cinema called Cosmonova and it is also the largest planetarium in Sweden.

Swedish Museum of National Antiquities

Mostly know for the “Gold Room” where several objects in gold from the bronze-, Iron Age, medieval and the Thirty Year War are on display

It also contains pieces and objects related to the Viking era.

Remainings of the world’s oldest church organ from the shift between 14th and 15th century is also present in the museum.

Strindberg museum

The museum is established in August Strindberg’s last dwelling, called Blue Tower, where he spent the last 4 years of his life.

The flat, which is the museum, contains his library and the original furniture and is reconstructed and decorated as it was during his lifetime. Also an area for temporary exhibitions exists.

The Museum of Modern Art

First opened in 1958, it houses Swedish and foreign contemporary and modern art.

Pieces of Picasso and Salvador Dali are included in its collection.

The museum also contains a famous restaurant which is popular due to its location on the island of Skeppsholmen and its view.

In 1993 a “Rififi” coup took place against the museum and six works of Picasso and two works by Georges Braque was stolen. The values of the works were exceeding 57 million Euros. Until today only 3 works of Picasso have been recovered.

The Butterfly House

In Haga Garden, just outside the city is the Butterfly House situated

The areas named as Haga Garden was were King Gustav III was planning on building his new castle and plant a modern English garden.

The king was assassinated before his plans got to action.

Since 1989 the Butterfly House, which covers 800 square meters, has offered its visitors to stroll around among its free flying butterfly’s. There are at least 400 butterflies from different parts and the environment is kept as a tropical climate.