Beaty Biodiversity Museum 🇨🇦

Located on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, the Beaty Biodiversity Museum is a natural history museum offering 20,000 square feet of collections and exhibit space. Opened to the public in 2010, the museum welcomes over 35,000 visitors per year and displays more than two million specimens collected from the 1910s to the present.

You will discover a focus on species from British Columbia, Yukon, and the Pacific Coast, housed within six main subcollections: the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, Marine Invertebrate Collection, Fossil Collection, Herbarium, Spencer Entomological Collection, and Fish Collection. The museum's central highlight suspended over the entrance ramp inside the two-storey, glass-walled Mowafaghian Atrium is a 25-metre skeleton of a female blue whale—Canada's largest blue whale skeleton and one of only 21 on public display worldwide.

As you explore the sustainably designed facility, you can view over 500 permanent exhibits displayed in cabinet windows, shadow boxes, and walk-on glass floor panels over in-ground excavations. Families can enjoy a dedicated family zone with juvenile reading materials alongside a teaching collection in the Discovery Lab, while an on-site theatre screens the documentary Raising Big Blue.

What to see at Beaty Biodiversity Museum

• Canada's largest blue whale skeleton suspended inside the atrium
• Over two million specimens across six specialized subcollections
• Interactive glass-covered in-ground excavations that visitors can walk on
• A dedicated family zone and Discovery Lab teaching collection
• Adjacent atrium displays featuring killer whale and dolphin skeletons

Visiting tips

Visit the two-storey Mowafaghian Atrium to explore the gift shop and grab a bite at the Niche Cafe during your tour.

How long: 2-3 hours · Best time: Daytime

How to get there & what’s nearby

Beaty Biodiversity Museum is easy to reach on Vancouver’s public transport, and pairs naturally with Museum of Anthropology at UBC and Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, Vancouver. For where to stay, the weather and full itineraries, see our Vancouver travel guide.