National Museum of Natural History
India's national nature museum opened on World Environment Day 1978 — then a fire in 2016 destroyed the building and its entire collection.
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Founded in 1972 for India's 25th independence anniversary at Indira Gandhi's push to "promote environmental awareness," the NMNH stood on Barakhamba Road near Connaught Place metro until April 2016, when fire gutted everything. As of 2022, the government has allocated a 6.5-acre site for a new building; an earlier 2015 plan had targeted Bhairon Marg, close to Purana Qila and the National Crafts Museum.
What to look for
- The original Barakhamba Road site at Tansen Marg, directly across from the Embassy of Nepal — the shell of what stood here until 2016
- The planned future location near Bhairon Marg, where the zoological park, Purana Qila, and National Crafts Museum are nearby
- Regional Museums of Natural History in Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Mysore, and Sawai Madhopur, which continue to exhibit while Delhi rebuilds
The Delhi building is not operational — confirm whether the new site has opened before making the trip.
National Museum of Natural History is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Delhi, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Delhi pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Delhi
- Red FortThe ramparts where Jawaharlal Nehru raised India's flag on 15 August 1947 still host that ceremony every Independence Day.
- Qutb MinarSuccessive dynasties handed this tower off across 170 years — Aibak started it in 1199, Firuz Shah Tughlaq capped it with a cupola in 1368.
- Humayun's TombThe red-sandstone ancestor of the Taj Mahal — commissioned by an empress, designed by Persian architects, and finished a century before Agra.
- Jama MasjidShah Jahan built his imperial mosque at the highest point of Shahjahanabad — the Mughal capital — and it was regarded as a symbolic gesture of Mughal power across India.
- Lotus TempleTwenty-seven marble petals, grouped in threes, fold into a single hall where any person of any faith walks in without condition.
- India GateAround 13,300 names carved in stone — soldiers lost across Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and the Afghan frontier.