Guangxi Museum, a provincial (autonomous regional) museum with an area of about 30,000 square meters, includes the Minority Cultural Relics Garden built in 1988 and Displaying Building in 1978. Founded in 1934 and rebuilt in 1956, it was renamed as the Museum of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region1 in 1958.
Guangxi Museum has a rich collection of precious cultural relics which outnumbers 50,000 pieces. Among them, more than 150 pieces are of the first grade, including hand axes of 830,000 years ago, big stone spades of the Neolithic age, animal mask pattern Bronze You-vessel (jar, round in horizontal section, with cover and swing handle) of the Shang dynasty, Bronze Wine vessels with snake and frog patterns of the Spring and Autumn Period, big bronze horses of the Han dynasty, and bronze lamps in the shape of phoenix, etc.
There are also a large number of national cultural relics. The collection of bronze drum7 in this museum is ranking first in the world. One of the bronze drums with clouds and thunder patterns, 165cm in tympanum diameter, is called “the King of Bronze Drum.” The main exhibitions of this museum includes: exhibition of Guangxi Historical Relics, exhibition of Ancient Bronze Drums, Guangxi Folklore exhibition and the Minority Cultural Relics Garden. In addition, temporary exhibitions on special themes are also regularly on display.
Guangxi Museum is also an institute0 for academic research. The major study fields are local history and national culture of Guangxi. In coordination with the works on archaeology and cultural relics, outstanding results have been achieved on the research of national archaeology, bronze drums and cliff paintings13.
In addition, the city has a superior geographical position, which neighbours Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macao, and faces Southeast Asia. This facilitates the trade and communication between China and Southeast Asian countries. Therefore, Nanning now has been a permanent site of CAEXPO.