Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
Open every day 10am-6pm
(except Christmas Day)
Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
Explore online stories of Aotearoa New Zealand’s social fabric – the voices, taonga, and communities shaping the nation, with an emphasis on diversity, social justice, and historical change, including community and migrant stories, suffrage, protest, settler history, social movements, and national identity.
If you are looking for what is on in the museum, check out the Exhibitions page.
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The Dawn Raids were the Government’s promise to ‘get tough’ on law and order and immigration in the 1970s. Raids took place in the early hours of the morning or late at night when police would enter homes to convict and deport so-called ‘over-stayers’.
What do children care about? What do they play with? How do they learn? How can museums represent the experiences of young people? Included here are stories exploring what it is like to grow up in Aotearoa New Zealand, and objects showing how childhoods have changed.
Everything from the founding documents of Aotearoa New Zealand, earthquakes that shaped cities, how to celebrate Matariki, Anzac stories, Fred Dagg, and the Topp Twins.
It is celebrated and argued over. It contains contradictions, and yet it offers clarity. It has a rocky past, but it is providing New Zealanders with new ways forward. It is the Treaty of Waitangi – this nation’s founding agreement.
What do children care about? What do they play with? How do they learn? How can museums represent the experiences of young people? Included here are stories exploring what it is like to grow up in Aotearoa New Zealand, and objects showing how childhoods have changed.
Learn all about Matariki and see our events. Matariki is a time to gather with family and friends to reflect on the past, celebrate the present, and plan for the future.
ANZAC refers to the soldiers from Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia who served in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) during the First World War. Anzac Day is held annually on April 25 as a national day of remembrance to commemorate those who served and those who died in all international wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations.
Around 20,000 shakes are measured every year in Aotearoa New Zealand – about 55 a day – our whenua (land) never stops shaking. Plates collide. Pressure builds. The land ruptures. How do we cope with living on such shaky ground?
The New Zealand Post Collection is the archive of New Zealand Post and its predecessor, the New Zealand Post Office. It was gifted to Te Papa in 1992. In addition to issued stamps, the archive contains original artwork, proofs, dies, and printing plates relating to issues from 1855 to the present day. From Pigeon Post to health stamps, artist designs to stamp albums, explore stamps on Collections Online.
Discover the stories of Tangata Whenua – the world of Māori, including mātauranga, taonga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, identity, and te reo Māori language resources, and stories of resistance and contemporary identity.
Explore the many documents and letters by James Hector regarding the Colonial Museum from 1865 until 1903, research material gathered by Museum staff about many areas of study in the sciences and humanities since 1865, and archives about the National Art Gallery dating from when it opened in 1936, including material about the development of exhibitions and the acquisition of artworks.
Find out how New Zealand citizens contributed to the suffrage movement in Britain.
Rēkohu Chatham Islands are 862 kilometres east of Christchurch and are 45 minutes ahead of New Zealand time. The Chatham Rise, a 1,400-kilometre mostly underwater land mass connects them to New Zealand. Lakes and lagoons cover about a quarter of the biggest island.
Read about trans histories, the Moon Landing, colonisation and impact, Edmund Hilary, tiny activism, Scots in New Zealand, and so much more.
The Collected Archives falls into two main groups. The first features New Zealand artists and a number of key New Zealand commercial art galleries.
The second group embraces a wide variety of other collected archival material including World War I ephemera (such as battle plans and correspondence) as well as documents left by important historical figures.
What sport clubs have you belonged to? Can you identify a Crown Lynn plate at twenty paces? Who has designed some of New Zealand’s biggest fashion moments?
A series of articles looking at the social and cultural impact of a one-time ‘essential industry’ and familiar presence in almost all New Zealand homes.
Professional and community-level sport has a long history in Aotearoa New Zealand from team sports to individual achievements. Read about rugby, running, racing, and rowing, along with political crossovers like the 81 tour, international firsts like the Britten Bike, Olympic champions like Peter Snell, and life before the All Blacks.
From woollens to workwear, pōtae (hats) to Panamas, feathers to fur, and khakis to korowai (cloaks). Explore stories that highlight the influences, industry, and imagination of fashion in New Zealand through our collections, exhibitions and research.
Do you recognise New Zealand in the 1800s and 1900s? Guess where these images by historic photographers Muir & Moodie and the Burton Brothers were taken.
Here you'll find expressions of culture, art conservation, and creativity across Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific. You can watch interviews with traditional and contemporary artists, browse selected artworks in our collection, take a deep dive into photographers, or watch makers blending cultural storytelling with artistic expression.
Find first-person stories of challenges and accomplishments from communities across the motu, and stories from the collections – from historical and contemporary immigrant stories, to Rainbow communities, and women getting the vote.
Explore queer objects, artworks, and stories in Te Papa’s collections and discover more about the rich histories of Aotearoa New Zealand’s LGBTQI+ communities and icons – including the AIDS Quilt, Carmen Rupe, and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Explore stories that highlight diverse women’s experiences as they have made positive changes for themselves, their whānau, and their communities.
Chinese Languages in Aotearoa is an ongoing project using language to highlight complex issues of cultural identity within various Chinese New Zealand communities. It begins with a series of videos, of people sharing stories of their connection to their heritage Chinese languages, speaking in Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hakka.
Discover the stories, identities, and traditions of Pacific people living in Te Moana Nui a Kiva and Aotearoa New Zealand. Features include stories about identity, community, traditional and revived knowledge, as well as connections to Te Papa’s collections. Whether you whakapapa to the Pacific or want to learn more, explore the vibrant stories of Tangata o le moana Pacific people.
Many individuals from Asian diasporas in Aotearoa New Zealand have consistently called for a greater focus on mental health issues. This project responds to this call and aims to highlight various discussions, understandings, and perspectives on mental health of Asian communities in Aotearoa.
Making Histories is a Te Papa project which aims to support visitors and communities around New Zealand to reflect on and share their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Think ‘Scots in New Zealand’, and your thoughts will probably turn to tartan, bagpipes, and ‘Auld Lang Syne’. But look beyond these and you’ll find a Scottish presence everywhere in New Zealand life.
The Dawn Raids were the Government’s promise to ‘get tough’ on law and order and immigration in the 1970s. Raids took place in the early hours of the morning or late at night when police would enter homes to convict and deport so-called ‘over-stayers’.
Taonga in the collections and stories connected to protest, decolonisation, and antiracism, help to record protest movements in Aotearoa New Zealand, creating a tangible history of issues that motivated New Zealanders to get up and be heard.
Read about protest collecting, decolonisation, and antiracism from our tohunga (experts), and across the web.
New Zealand has had its fair share of major protest issues, and over the decades New Zealanders have become adept at mobilising around causes – from protests about wars, to the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people, protecting the environment, and race relations.
Explore protest in Aotearoa through our Collections Online. You can delve into why people protest, explore activism in your own community, and grow your own skills as a changemaker.
From the early 60s, public and governmental concern about the environmental impacts of nuclear power and atmospheric nuclear weapons testing gradually grew. By the 80s, many districts throughout New Zealand declared themselves nuclear free, and the peace movement took the anti-nuclear issue into mainstream New Zealand politics, and anti-nuclear policies became law in 1987 when New Zealand became a nuclear-free zone,
Find out about the history of the Nationional Museum, conserving historical objects, and colonial collecting practices and their affects on provenance research and Māori representation in museums internationally, and in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Founded in Thorndon in 1865 by Sir James Hector, the Colonial Museum was Te Papa’s predecessor. Discover its early stories and people, and how past collecting practices continue to shape – and sometimes hinder – provenance research today.
In 1907, the Colonial Museum was renamed the Dominion Museum and took on a broader national focus. In 1936, a new building opened in Buckle Street to house the Dominion Museum and new National Art Gallery. In 1972, the Dominion Museum became the National Museum.
This project seeks to ensure that all taonga Māori collected during James Hector’s directorship at the Colonial Museum have their provenance and associated information reconciled with their current registration numbers, and therefore made available to our visitors and those connected to them.
Textile conservator Anne Peranteau, and costume mount maker Sam Gatley describe the process of preparing two 18th century dresses for display in an exhibition.
Books about the stories of Aotearoa New Zealand.
From postage stamps to protest, childrens toys to familiar scenes, from early New Zealand society to contemporary migrant community collecting, view Aotearoa New Zealand culture on Collections Online.
