The Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum is an museum dedicated to dinosaur research and education. It is one of the largest dinosaur museums in the world. The museum is located in Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture, where Japan’s largest numbers of dinosaur fossils have been found and also the center of dinosaur research in Japan.
The museum exhibits a number of specimens on geology and paleontology, such as invertebrate fossils, minerals, rocks and most especially, dinosaurs.
The museum consists of three zones; “Dinosaur World”, “Earth Sciences” and “History of Life”.
Dinosaur World is the main floor that houses more than 40 dinosaur skeletons display together with an excellent English explanations. Other displays include computer generated animations of dinosaurs, moving model dinosaurs and a diorama of dinosaurs in Sichuan, China.
On the same floor found the Earth Sciences that exhibits, videos and familiar objects to teach visitors about the earth and how life emerged on this planet.
In the second floor is the History of Life that explains the birth of life on Earth up to the emergence of humans. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the display on how dinosaurs evolved into birds.
The museum also has a hands-on zone that encourages the visitors to pick up and hold real fossils. Another one is a research laboratory where visitors can watch scientist and technician clean fossils and do research from behind a glass window.
A movie theater, room for special exhibitions, a restaurant and a museum shop can also be found in the museum. Several more dinosaur models are placed outside around the museum grounds, and visitors may participate in outdoor excavation activities in spring and fall.
Ride the train from the Echizen Railway and get off at the Katsuyama Station. From there, transfer to a community bus that's on a route to Nagaoyama and get off at Kyoryu Hakubutsukan-mae bus stop.
The museum opens at 9:00 to 17:00 and entry until 16:30. It is closed on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays each month except in August, from December 29 to January 2 and a few days in late January. Admission fee is 770 Yen for the permanent exhibition and there are seperate fee for special exhibitions.