Established in 1998, Baotou Museum locates in the downtown of Baotou city. It is a national second-level museum with comprehensive exhibition of Baotou and western part of Inner Mongolia. The new museum has a building area of 24,000 square meters, including Baotou Art Museum in it.
Inside the museum, one of the theme exhibitions is about history. Thanks for dedicating of archeologists for over 20 years, the history of Baotou in last 6,000 years are shown to visitors. Another theme regards to rock paintings. The best of rock paintings from past thousands year in Inner Mongolia area are carefully protected, selected, and displayed. Only half a year after the rock painting exhibition was launched, it received two major rewards in the area of cultural relic. Tibetan Buddhism is another theme exhibition. The exhibits are mainly paintings about religion, portraying the meaning of Buddhism, characters, and religious activities. As the most important resource in Baotou, rare-earth elements also become a theme in the museum. This exhibition shows the current circumstance, achievements we have so far reached, and future application of rare-earth elements, and it is the only exhibition in China that merely focuses on rare-earth elements.
In 2000, the main exhibition of Baotou Museum was awarded for being one of the “Top Ten Exhibitions of Inner Mongolia autonomous region” by the region’s Culture Department. In 2002, Baotou’s government decided to build a new Baotou Museum. After five years of construction, the brand new museum was opened to public on July 27, 2007.