Royal British Columbia Museum
Founded in 1886, the Royal British Columbia Museum consists of The Province of British Columbia's natural and human history museum as well as the British Columbia Provincial Archives. The museum is located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The "Royal" title was approved by Queen Elizabeth II and bestowed by HRH Prince Philip in 1987, to coincide with a Royal tour of that year. The museum merged with the British Columbia Provincial Archives in 2003.
The Royal BC Museum includes three permanent galleries: modern history, natural history, and local First Nations’ history. The museum’s collections comprise approximately 7 million objects, including artifacts, natural history specimens, and archival records. The natural history collections have 750,000 records of specimens almost exclusively from BC and neighbouring states, provinces, or territories. The collections are divided into eight disciplines: Entomology, Botany, Paleontology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Zoology, Herpetology, Mammals, and Ornithology. Bryophytes and Algae are not well represented. The museum also hosts touring exhibits, and previous exhibits have included artifacts related to the RMS Titanic, Leonardo da Vinci, Egyptian artifacts, and Genghis Khan. The museum's IMAX theatre shows educational films as well as commercial entertainment.
