In France, the National Museum of Natural History ( ; MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Jardin des Plantes on the left bank of the River Seine. It was formally founded in 1793, during the French Revolution, but was begun even earlier in 1635 as the royal garden of medicinal plants. The MNHN now has 14 sites throughout France.

Since the 2014 reform, it has been headed by a chairman, assisted by deputy managing directors. The Museum has a staff of approximately 2,350 members, including six hundred researchers. It is a member of the national network of naturalist collections (RECOLNAT).

History 17th–18th century

The MNHN was formally established on June 10, 1793, by the French Convention, the government during the French Revolution, at the same time that it established the Louvre Museum.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturalle" (2004, p.14 But its origins went back much further, to the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants, which was created by King Louis XIII in 1635, and was directed and run by the royal physicians. A royal proclamation of the boy-king Louis XV on 31 March 1718, removed the purely medical function. Besides growing and studying plants useful for health, the royal garden offered public lectures on botany, chemistry, and comparative anatomy. In 1729, the chateau in the garden was enlarged with an upper floor, and transformed into the cabinet of natural history, designed for the royal collections of zoology and mineralogy. A series of greenhouses were constructed on the west side of the garden, to study the plants and animals collected by French explorers for their for medical and commercial uses.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturelle" (2004), pp. 4–5

From 1739 until 1788, the garden was under the direction of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, one of the leading naturalists of the Enlightenment. Though he did not go on scientific expeditions himself, he wrote a monumental and influential work, "Natural History", in thirty-six volumes, published between 1749 and 1788. In his books, he challenged the traditional religious ideas that nature had not changed since the creation; he suggested that the earth was seventy-five thousand years old, divided into seven periods, with man arriving in the most recent. He also helped fund much research, through the iron foundry which he owned and directed. His statue is prominently placed in front of the Gallery of Evolution.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturelle" (2004), p. 10

Following the French Revolution the MNHN was reorganised, with twelve professorships of equal rank. Some of its early professors included eminent comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier and the pioneers of the theory of evolution, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. The museum's aims were to instruct the public, put together collections and conduct scientific research. The naturalist Louis Jean Marie Daubenton wrote extensively about biology for the pioneer French Encyclopédie, and gave his name to several newly discovered species. The museum sent its trained botanists on scientific expeditions around the world. Major figures in the MNHN included Déodat de Dolomieu, who gave his name to the mineral dolomite and to a volcano on Réunion island, and the botanist Rene Desfontaines, who spent two years collecting plants for study Tunisia and Algeria, and whose book "Flora Atlantica" (1798–1799, 2 vols), added three hundred genera new to science.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturelle" (2004), p. 9

When Napoleon Bonaparte launched his military campaign to conquer Egypt in 1798, his army was accompanied by more than 154 scientists, including botanists, chemists, mineralogists, including Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Vivant Denon, Joseph Fourier, and Claude Louis Berthollet, who together took back a large quantity of specimens and illustrations to enrich the collections of the museum.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturelle" (2004), p. 15

19th century

The MNHN continued to flourish during the 19th century, particularly under the direction of chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, His research with animal fatsChevreul, M.E., Recherches sur les corps gras d'origine animale, F.G. Levrault, Paris, 1823 revolutionised the manufacture of soap and of candles and led to his isolation of the heptadecanoic (margaric), stearic, and oleic fatty acids. In the medical field, he was first to demonstrate that diabetics excrete glucose.Chevreul, M.E. Note sur le Sucre de Diabetes, Annales de Chemie, Paris 1815 and to isolate creatine. His theories of colour "provided the scientific basis for Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painting."Itten, Johannes, The Art of Color, New York, 1961

Henri Becquerel held the chair for Applied Physics at the MNHN (1892–1908). By wrapping uranium salts in photographic paper, he first demonstrated the radioactive properties of uranium. In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Marie Curie for the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity.Henri Becquerel – Biographical Nobelprize.org. Four generations of Becquerels held this chairmanship, from 1838 to 1948.

As its collections grew, the MNHN was enlarged, with the construction of a new gallery of zoology. it was begun in 1877 and completed in 1889, for the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. A new Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy was opened in 1898. The cost of construction drained the museum budget and it began to run short of funds. Its emphasis on teaching brought it into conflict with the University of Paris, which had better political connections. It gradually scaled back its program of teaching and focused primarily on research and the museum collections.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturelle" (2004), pp. 20–22

20th–21st century After receiving greater financial autonomy in 1907, it began a new phase of growth. In 1934, the MNHN opened the Paris Zoological Park, a new zoo to in the Bois de Vincennes, as the home for the larger animals of the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1937, it opens the Musée de l'Homme, a museum of anthropology located in Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, in a building created for the 1937 Paris International Exposition. In recent decades, it has directed its research and education efforts at the effects on the environment of human exploitation. In French public administration, the museum is classed as a of higher education.

Some of the buildings, particularly the Grand Gallery of Evolution, completed in 1889, were in poor condition by the mid-20th century. It was closed entirely in 1965, then underwent major restoration between 1991 and 1994 to its present state.Deligeorges, Gady and Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Muséum national de'histoire naturelle" (2004), pp. 20–22

In August 2025, the MNHN returned the skull of the Malagasy King Toera of Menabe, who was killed by French colonial soldiers in 1897, to Madagascar along with the skulls of two of his companions after more than a century of keeping the skulls in its archives.

On 16 September 2025, multiple gold artefacts valued at €600,000 were stolen following a heist at the MNHN. A suspect was charged on 21 October 2025 in connection with the heist.

Plan

Galleries and gardens The birthplace of the MNHN and a large part of its modern collections are found in five galleries in the Jardin des Plantes. These are the Gallery of Evolution; the Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology; the Gallery of Botany; the Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, and the Laboratory of Entomology.Deligeorges, Gady, Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle" (2004), p. 38

The Grand Gallery of Evolution

The MNHN has been called "the Louvre of the Natural Sciences".Deligeorges, Gady, Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle" (2004), p. 38 Its largest and best-known gallery is the Grand Gallery of Evolution, located at the end of the central alley facing the formal garden. It replaced an earlier Neoclassical gallery built next to the same by Buffon, opened in 1785, and demolished in 1935. It was proposed in 1872 and begun in 1877 by the architect Louis-Jules André, a teacher at the influential École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. It is a prominent example of Beaux Arts Architecture. It was opened in 1889 for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, which also presented the Eiffel Tower. It was never fully completed in its original design; it never received the neoclassical entrance planned for the side of the building away from the garden, facing Rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire.Deligeorges, Gady, Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle" (2004), p. 38

The facade of the building was designed specifically as a backdrop for the garden. The facade facing the garden is divided into eleven traverses. Ten are decorated with sculpted medallions honouring prominent French scientists associated with the MNHN. The central traverse has a larger marble statue of a woman seated holding a book, in a pose similar to that of statue of Buffon facing the building. The statues are the work of Eugene Guillaume, a pupil of the sculptor Pradier.

While the building exterior was neo-classical, the iron framework of the interior was extremely modern for the 19th century, like that of the Gare d'Orsay railroad station of the same period. It contained an immense rectangular hall, 55 metres long, 25 wide, and 15 metres high, supported by forty slender cast-iron columns, and was originally covered with a glass roof one thousand square metres in size. The building suffered from technical problems, and was closed entirely in 1965. It was extensively remodelled between 1991 and 1994 and reopened in its present form.Deligeorges, Gady, Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle" (2004), p. 39

The great central hall, kept in its same form but enlarged during the modernisation, is devoted to the presentation of marine animals on the lower sides, and, on a platform in the centre, a parade of full-size African mammals, including a rhinoceros originally presented to King Louis XV in the 18th century. On the garden side is another hall, in its original size, devoted to animals which have disappeared or are in danger of extinction.Deligeorges, Gady, Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle" (2004), pp. 40–41

Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology

The Gallery of Mineralogy, looking across the formal garden and close to the Gallery of Evolution, was constructed between 1833 and 1837 by Charles Rohault de Fleury in a neoclassical style, with two porticos of Doric columns. Directly in front is the rose garden, renewed in 1990 with 170 types of European roses, as well as a Japanese pagoda tree (Styphnolobium japonicum), planted there by Bernard de Jussieu in 1747.Deligeorges, Gady, Labalette, "Le Jardin des Plantes et le Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle" (2004), p. 42