The National Museum of China is a museum with the largest single-building floor area in the world. Completed in 1959 and expanded in 2007, the museum is China’s primary establishment for collecting, researching, displaying, and interpreting China’s fine traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture. The museum is the top palace of history and art and a cultural parlor for China.

The National Museum of China is located on the east side of the square, facing west. The facade is symmetrically arranged, as with the Great Hall of the People, which faces the other side of the square. The old museum building was designed with an inner courtyard layout of horizontal spaces, and a row of columns was set at the west entrance to maintain symmetry in architectural scale, form, and style with the facade of the Great Hall of the People.