Linqu County Museum

Linqu County Museum, a national first-class museum hidden in a small county town. How did a museum in such a small county town achieve such an honor? The Linqu County Museum has a total collection of over 99,000 pieces (sets). With a building area of 26,000 square meters and an exhibition area of 9,300 square meters, it has 11 permanent exhibitions and 2 temporary exhibition halls, including Linqu General History, Buddhist Statues, Folk Memory, Red Culture, and Shanwang Fossils, making it a comprehensive museum integrating display, education, collection, research, and utilization. It is the Shanwang fossils that earned the Linqu County Museum the title of a national first-class museum. Shanwang fossils, formed 18 million years ago, are China's only and the world's rare complete, diverse, and irreplaceable stratum paleontological fossil remains of the Miocene with significant scientific value. Famous for their abundance, diversity, and exquisite preservation, more than a dozen categories and over 700 genera and species have been discovered, hailed as a 'stone history of ten thousand volumes, a national treasure,' with extremely high academic and research value. The Shanwang fossils AR digital interactive experience area is highly entertaining and technological, bringing a strong sense of presence and participation to the experiencer through the integration of sound, text, and special effects. Historical relics from the Beixin culture to the modern era are all collected, including jade, pottery, bronzeware, porcelain, and the calligraphy and couplets of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which are rare treasures. The Buddhist statues of the Northern Dynasties are appropriately detailed, with smooth lines and exquisite craftsmanship, truly a national treasure. The tomb murals of Cui Fen from the Northern Qi Dynasty fill a gap in the history of Chinese art for this period. The Shanwang fossil exhibition is located on the second floor of the fossil exhibition hall of the Shanwang Paleontological Fossil Museum in Linqu, Shandong. The exhibited plant fossils include nearly a hundred types of algae, mosses, ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms, totaling 142 species. Among them, the branches and leaves of plants are the most numerous, and the preservation of flowers, fruits, and seeds is also intact; the animal fossils include insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Among them, insect fossils have been found in 12 orders, 84 families, 221 genera, and 400 species; fish fossils have been found in 7 genera and 10 species of the carp and loach families; amphibians have been found in several genera, including salamanders of the Caudata and toads, spade-foot toads, rain frogs, tree frogs, and sedge frogs of the Anura; reptile fossils include turtles, crocodilians, and snakes; bird fossils have been found in 6 species, among which the discovery of the Shanwang Shandong bird filled a gap in the Miocene bird fossils of China, with academic and research value; mammals have been found in 17 genera and 18 species, including the Euprox furcatus, hornless rhinoceros, ancestral bear of the East, and Confucius dog bear, among others. The exhibition of Shanwang fossils recreates the ecological environment of the Shanwang area 18 million years ago. Location: Shanwang Paleontological Fossil Museum of Linqu, Shandong, is located at No. 1167 Shanwang Road, Linqu County, Weifang City, Shandong Province. Ticket Price: Free Opening Hours: Morning: 8:30-12:00; Afternoon: 13:30-17:30 Transportation: Take Linqu County public buses No. 7 or 8 and get off at the Museum stop.