The Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe

The Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe sits in a round building in Centenary Park, in the Suburbs district of Bulawayo. It started life on 1 January 1902 as the Rhodesia Museum, in one room of the public library, and the present building, which the museum counts as its fifth home, opened on 20 March 1964. It is the only natural history museum in the country, and for me the best reason to give Bulawayo a full day.

What to expect

Nine public galleries. The geology gallery is named after F.P. Mennell, the first curator, and holds a walk-through mine plus the dinosaur fossils. The Livingstone Sango-Moyo Gallery has the mounted mammals, and somewhere in the building is what Wikipedia calls the second-largest mounted elephant in the world. Snakes live in the Donald Broadley Gallery, mostly preserved, with a few live ones (Wikivoyage mentions constrictors and venomous species).

History gets two halls. The Hall of Kings leans heavily on the Ndebele state and says little about Great Zimbabwe, while the Hall of Man runs from early hominids to the present. Outside stands a statue of Cecil Rhodes, who had a hand in the museum’s founding.

Practical details

• Address: corner of Park Road and Leopold Takawira Avenue, Centenary Park.
• Phone: +263 29 2250 045.
• Open daily 9am to 5pm, public holidays included.
• There is a cafeteria and a 120-seat lecture hall.

Good to know

Leave the camera in the bag, Wikivoyage says photography is not allowed. The museum also houses the Western Region directorate, which looks after the cultural side of Khami and the Matobo Hills, so it makes sense as a first stop before either. Behind the galleries are eight research departments, and the insect collection alone runs past five million specimens, almost none of it on show.

Last updated 19 October 2026. Sources: Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, history of the museum, Wikipedia, Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, Wikivoyage, Bulawayo.