About Us

The Center of Natural History (CeNak) brings together the work of three museums at Universität Hamburg: the Zoological Museum, the Mineralogical Museum, and the Geological-Paleontological Museum. Each museum houses a number of scientific collections and an exhibition.

Research on the collections, which together number some 10 million objects, enjoys both national and international acclaim. Consolidating these museums within CeNak serves three key aims:

• To preserve collections and ensure their availability.
• To expand and develop the collections.
• To make specimens available to both researchers and the general public.

Hamburg’s former Museum of Natural History (Naturhistorisches Museum), was destroyed during World War II. Fortunately, it was possible to rescue important parts of its collections. CeNak now plans to establish
a natural history museum of the twenty-first century—
a research museum to bridge the gap between academia and the general public.