Berlin is unique in the world for the sheer range of museums on offer. The city’s museums not only preserve treasures of world cultures and outstanding art from the Middle Ages to the present day, but also display extraordinary finds from the field of natural history as well as objects that bear testimony to historical developments in the field of technology. The history of National Socialism and the division of Germany is conveyed at locations where significant happenings originally occurred. Numerous museums throughout the city are dedicated to individual artists or to specialised themes of cultural history.

Once a year, when the summer is drawing to a close, this museum landscape shines like a star in the sky, namely, during the Long Night of Museums. On this night, 70 to 80 museums, memorials, exhibition centres and planetariums open their doors and welcome everyone: children, young and old people, Berlin natives and new Berliners, art fans and technology nerds, culture vultures and those who want to discover Berlin’s museums in a whole new light. Guided tours at the venues provide visitors with their first insights, entertain them and establish connections of relevance to their everyday lives. It is the night when Berliners find their new favourite museums and discover their city’s wealth of cultural treasures, original historical sites and stories preserved in collections.

To this day, the Long Night of Museums, invented in Berlin in 1997 and since then imitated throughout the world, continues to attract tens of thousands of visitors – with numbers constantly increasing in recent years. Berlin’s museums closely cooperate with us – Kulturprojekte Berlin (a company owned by the federal state of Berlin) – to bring the city’s museum landscape into focus once a year. Each museum provides an attractive programme tailored to its premises and collection, takes visitors behind the scenes, and invites guests and experts to offer their insights. Out of these scattered 75 locations and hundreds of separate events, we create a whole that we promote with vibrant creativity and transform into a major summer event that has become an annual highlight for many Berliners.