Located in the Mall, Washignton's most popular visitors district, the National Museum of Natural History houses the majority of the Smithsonian Institutes collection of approximately 120 million objects and artefacts. Of these, one percent (over a million objects) is on display at any one time. Some of the permenant displays include the Hope Diamond, an eight ton African bush elephant (the largest of it's species ever to be found), Dinosaur Hall and the Orkin Insect Zoo. Outside the Natural History Museum, opposite the Department of Agriculture, stands two large petrified logs from Arizona and a 2.5 billion year old iron boulder from Michigan.

Open daily 10am to 5:30pm