Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, is the largest and the most developed city in Vietnam. The city is famous for the crowded pace of life, appealing entertainment attractions, and historical and cultural sites. Visiting the museum is the best way to know about the history, the culture, and the life of local people. Let’s visit the top 05 Saigon museums below for more detailed information.

• War Remnants Museum
• Ho Chi Minh City Museum
• Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts
• Southern Women’s Museum
• Museum of Vietnamese History

War Remnants Museum

• Address: 28 Vo Van Tan, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City
• Opening time: 7.30 a.m. - 6.00 p.m.
• Entrance fee: VND 40,000 (adult) & VND 20,000 (children from 6 to 16)

War Remnants Museum is one of the Saigon museums you should not miss when you travel to the city. It is an ideal place for people who would like to learn about Vietnam’s history during the war times. 

Coming to the museum, you can see many artifacts, documents, and truthful and vivid images about the colonial times in Vietnam and its consequences on the country and the people of Vietnam. These artifacts and photographs are strong evidence for the colonial’s crimes and the will to fight for the national independence of Vietnamese soldiers and people. 

Bomb artifacts in the War Remnants Museum

The museum has three floors with different topics displayed. Until now, the museum holds more than 20,000 documents, exhibits, movies, and artifacts. There are galleries on the Southwest Border War, the Northern Border Protection War, Truong Sa Islands issue, the conspiracy of hostile forces, etc., that you can see when you visit the museum. 

Especially, you will have the chance to admire some artifacts such as combat aircraft, cannons, tanks, guillotine, and “tiger cages.” “Tiger cages” special cell is the outstanding stop inside the museum. It is considered to be the most terrible torture of the American army for patriotic prisoners. 

Let’s come to the War Remnants Museum and have your own experience here!

Ho Chi Minh City Museum

• Address: 65 Ly Tu Trong, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
• Opening time: 7.30 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.
• Entrance fee: VND 30,000

Ho Chi Minh City Museum is also among the must-visit Saigon museums. The museum impresses tourists with its architecture like a large villa with French neoclassical architecture. Coming to the museum, you will see both ancient and modern sculptural motifs and door frame dome in a spacious and airy garden campus.  

Ho Chi Minh City Museum

Besides the unique architecture, you will see many valuable artifacts displayed in nine rooms. Each of the rooms will bring you to different historical times and help you learn about the city’s history of formation and development. You will have the chance to know about these topics below.

• Nature and archeology 
• Geography and administration of Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City
• Commercial port, Trade - service
• Industry and handicraft
• Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City’s culture
• Revolutionary Struggle 1930 - 1954
• Revolutionary Struggle 1954 - 1975
• Resistance memorabilia
• Vietnamese currency

You can refer here for more detailed information about each of the topics. Let’s visit the museum and see the objectives on your own. 

Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts

• Address: 97A Pho Duc Chinh, Nguyen Thai Binh Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
• Opening time: 8.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.
• Entrance fee: VND 30,000

Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts is worth noting on the list of the top Saigon museums you should drop in. This museum was found to serve people’s needs to admire the arts and introduce Vietnamese and Saigon arts to foreigners. 

Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts

The museum has three buildings to exhibit more than 21,000 valuable images and artworks divided into different areas in detail below. 

• The first building

This building exhibits the ancient- contemporary arts, modern arts from Dong Duong - Gia Dinh university of fine arts’ artists before and after 1975, and sculptural works. Besides, you will have a chance to join a studio for hands-on experience in art and buy souvenirs in the art shop.

• The second building

In this building, you will find special exhibitions from the museum’s collection, convention room, projection room, and reading room. 

• The third building

Coming to this building, you will have an opportunity to admire ancient and modern arts made from stone, ceramic materials, wood materials, and copper materials.

Besides featured works, you will also be impressed with the museum’s architecture. You will see a large building with a combination of French and Southeast design style from the gate. The windows here are fitted with European artistic style stained glasses, and the floor is covered with encaustic cement tiles with a variety of designs and patterns, while the stairs are covered with marble. 

Let’s note the Ho Chi Minh Museum of Fine Arts in your list of attractions you should come to during your trip to the city!

Southern Women’s Museum

• Address: 200 - 202 Vo Thi Sau, Ward 7, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City
• Opening hours: 7.30 a.m. - 11.30 a.m. & 1.30 p.m. - 5.00 p.m.

Southern Women’s Museum was built in 1985 to preserve and educate Southern women’s patriotism and fine traditions for visitors coming. With a large number of artifacts, the museum has become one of the Saigon museums attracting many tourists. 

Until now, the museum has stored more than 31,000 objects, more than 16,000 monolithic objects, and more than 14,500 films, photos, and scientific documents. The artifacts are divided into 24 collections by theme or material, including six collections of rare artifacts. Besides, the museum's library has more than 11,000 titles on women.

Southern Women's Museum

Coming to the Southern Women’s Museum, you can find 11 subjects on the permanent display system below.

• Vietnamese women’s traditions before the appearance of the Communist Party of Vietnam
• Uncle Ho with the Southern Women and the Southern Women with Uncle Ho
• The formation and development of the Vietnam Women’s Union
• Southern women in building and defending the country since the day of national reunification
• The Southern women in political struggle
• Southern Women in the armed forces
• The Southern women in diplomatic work
• Southern women in colonial-imperial prisons
• Worshiping beliefs 
• Costumes and jewelry of women of ethnic groups in the South
• Traditional craft weaving

Besides the permanent display, the museum also has thematic exhibitions with many related topics to the Southern women and Vietnamese women. Let’s visit and explore the museum yourself!

Museum of Vietnamese history

• Address: 02 Nguyen Binh Khiem, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
• Opening hours: 8.00 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.
• Entrance fee: VND 30,000

The museum of Vietnamese history, or Ho Chi Minh City history museum, is one of the first Saigon museums, opened in 1929. It is the place to preserve, store, and promote ethnic, cultural heritages through researching, collecting, restoring, and exhibiting. The museum is a construction with two buildings, the ancient building built in 1927 and the building built after 1970 with the modern Indochina style. 

Coming to the museum, you can learn about Vietnam’s thousand year-of-history and culture and Southern Vietnam’s specific characteristics through the collection of more than 43,000 documents and artifacts. There are two parts in the museum’s permanent exhibition, one aspect about Vietnamese history from the primitive times to the Nguyen Dynasty. The other part is about the culture of Southern Vietnam’s ethnic groups and some countries in Asia. Besides, you can find the cannons made from coppers, irons, born from the 18th century in the outside area.

Museum of Vietnamese History

In conclusion, through this article, you can learn about the top 05 Saigon museums you should visit when traveling to the city. Hope that these pieces of information will be helpful for your trip!