National Museum of Ethnology

Phenomenal museum--well worth the visit. Truly an amazing collection of items from around the world. Incredible displays, it's a lot to take in. We were completely mesmerized by the collection--both it's volume and quality. I really liked so many of the exhibits--its hard to highlight them all--I wouldn't be doing them justice. My children also enjoyed the museum--its a great learning place, I wish there were more places like this around the world! If in Osaka again, we'd make the effort to come back. Highly recommended.

Honestly, we only went into this place to escape Japan's horrible summer sun. I had no idea what to expect, "ethnology" is not a word we use frequently in English. But it was an awesome museum.

The museum had exhibits on cultures I'm not completely used to in America. I haven't seen such a huge exhibit on Kazakhstan, for example. Highlights were the kite exhibits, the hall of musical instruments, and also the exhibits of common clothes Pacific Islanders wear - I hadn't been to a museum that features my part of the world in another country.

I plan to go back, there was too much to take in for just one day.

The collection here is awesome, overwhelming, and sometimes eclectic. We thought we could be in and out in 2 hours but ended up spending over 3 hours. And that was in a rush, we probably could have spent double that amount of time if we didn't want to see other stuff in the park. However, not a museum for someone who doesn't like reading as there isn't much interaction here other than the linguistics exhibit. Also, not all the info boards are translated to English, so be prepared to use your phone data either to scan QR codes for translated info, or use your Google translate.

Really amazing museum of cultural items made by humans. Be amazed at the stuff from foreign cultures and puzzled why ordinary stuff from your own culture is here. It took me more than 2 hours to walk around and I didn’t look at everything.

One of the best museum I have ever visited, it can consume you a whole day or even more time if you try to look at all the items they exhibit, the venue is very big and got so many things to see and learn, eye opening experience, entrance fee is cheap.

Fantastic spot to spend a few hours in. The museum is located inside the Expo Commemoration Park (accessible by the osaka monorail), and is a roughly 10 min walk from the entrance of the Expo Park.

The different cultures of the world are displayed clearly through the 2nd floor of the museum.

Each region has its own section complete with faithful and realistic recreations of notable landmarks or sights.

The museum also has categories such as religion, music and language.

Most of the exhibits include a reasonable amount of English explanations, though they are not as detailed as the jaapense ones. Even so, the sheer breath of things to see here is more than sufficient to keep most busy for a few hours.

Ensure you retain your ticket stub, as you will need for access back into the Expo park.

The museum is very great and not boring at all. It has collection of the development of culture in each continent which covers almost every country from around the world. There are library too which collections are so interesting, about language, history, culture, and ethnics from around the world, in english and japanese. There are many computers too for you to watch their collection of documentary movies. And there is events almost every 2 weeks in this museum. This interactional based museum is worth to visit.

Really vast museum in the expo park. Tons and tons of interesting items from all around the world. And some beautiful displays as well. Went on a Sunday afternoon and the museum itself was not very busy.

I found this to be the most interesting experience. The spread of civilisation and development of culture was really interesting. I would go again.

Quite frankly one of the best ethnology museums in the world, both in terms of content and its presentation. You will need at least 2 hours if not 4 to fully experience it.

Amazing place to go. Located inside the World Expo area. It offers many exhibitions from all over the world. You could easily spend the whole day here and you would still find interesting things. Even if you don't like museums, this one is special. While it offers to so many cultures exponents and information it just keeps interesting.

We can see many faces and heritages from contries all over the world during world expo held in Japan on 1970. My favourite space is when we can draw faces and leaves the messages behind it for the display of '未来へ集まる、未来へ送る

Amazing museum. It is a great place to visit and learn about cultures all over the world. It has a large number of exhibits.

This place was great, this might sound cliche but it was legitimately inspiring to see so many cultures highlights displayed so well. It filled me with optimisim and appreciation for the world around me. Also, because it's somewhat unclear in the museum, photography seems to be ok.

Huge museum with amazing objects and exhibition around the world. Took 3-4hrs to finish all.

Terrific place. Huge and really interesting. Must visit museum in Osaka

I was not able to really explore the whole place since I only had an hour before the place closed, but even still this place was very fun.
Would go again if I'm ever in the area.

There are enough exhibits here to fill up several hours, and there's a comprehensive audio guide too.

There is a lack of English explanations but it doesn't hurt its awesomeness. Clearly a lot of research and efforts have been put into the museum, as there are tons of models and real items that people would use are exhibited there.

Vast collection, especially strong on Japan, Korea, China. Other regions are represented by geography (roughly one zone per continent) as a nice summary of it, short but sufficient. There is also a small section on languages and - surprisingly - one entirely dedicated to music. Portable video guides are very exhaustive: they consist of over 700 videos of 1 to 3 minutes, in Japanese or English.
Was not crowded in spite of it being a Sunday, most probably because access is not the easiest. Special heads up to the very specific architecture of the building from the 70's, which whether you like it or not is a must-see. Staff friendly.