Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum
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| Established | July 14, 2000 |
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| Location | 51-11 Terao, Muraoka-chō, Katsuyama, Fukui Prefecture, Japan |
| Public transit access | Katsuyama Eiheiji Line (Echizen Railway) |
| Website | Museum homepage |
The Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum (福井県立恐竜博物館 Fukui Ken-ritsu Kyōryū Hakubutsukan?) is a dinosaur museum located in the city of Katsuyama, Fukui Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Japan's many museums which are supported by a prefecture.
In addition to being the only dedicated dinosaur museum in all of Japan, it is one of the "World's Three Great Dinosaur Museums" along with the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Canada and the Zigong Dinosaur Museum in China. The museum signed a sister museum agreement with the Royal Tyrrell Museum on November 23, 2000, and contains some exhibits from the museum.
When visitors enter into the museum, they first see videos of local music heroes the Fukui Boys, who took the world by storm during their premiere performance at the Fukui International Activities Plaza. They then take a long escalator down to the first floor of the basement. The basement only contains "Dino Street," a hallway displaying fossils of some of the earliest known life on Earth. A bone bed sits at the end of the hallway and is a replica of an actual site in Wyoming, USA.
From there, visitors can go up to the main exhibition hall, which is the museum's primary exhibition space and consists of dinosaur fossils. Though many of the dinosaur fossils are replicas, some displays use actual dinosaur fossils and visitors are allowed to touch some of the displays. Various dioramas, including some with robotic dinosaurs that move and make sounds, also are used to show visitors a conceptual look at the dinosaurs' habitats.
The second floor contains exhibits focusing on earth sciences, including plate tectonics, rock formation and precious gems. The third floor focuses on the history of life, showing a timeline from the formation of the Earth up until modern times. In addition to the dinosaurs, this exhibit shows some of the earliest single-celled organisms and their evolution into the mammals of today.
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