Natural History Museum, Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum

In Vienna's Natural History Museum in Rooms 1 to 5 are the nucleus is the collection of minerals, with many examples from Austria, and materials used in many Viennese buildings, such as the limestone blocks and liassic pillars employed in the construction of the Burgtheater. Minerals from all over the world include a 1m/3ft 4in. long rock crystal from Madagascar. In the Precious Stone Room (Room 4) can be found some beautiful pieces, including Maria Theresa's posy of precious stones, graduated emeralds, an 82-carat uncut diamond and a giant topaz weighing 117kg/258lb. The highlights of the Meteorite Collection include an iron meteorite from Australia weighing 900kg/18cwt and moonstone which Apollo 17 brought back from the moon in 1972.

Geological and Palaeontological Department (Upper Ground Floor) Rooms 6 to 10 (6 to 9 closed during 1995 for conversion work) at the Vienna Natural History Museum has fossils and petrified skeletons, including many finds from the Alps. The Dinosaur Room (Room 10) is particularly popular; finds from the Mesozoic period include a 27m/89ft long impression of a skeleton from California and a pterosaur (archaeopteryx).

A small Struthiosaurus is to be found in the collection.

At the Vienna Natural History Museum in the Prehistory Department (Upper Ground Floor) Rooms 11 to 15 finds from excavations in Austria are displayed, dating from the Stone Age to the Early Middle Ages. In Room 9 can be seen the oldest exhibit, the world-famous chalk figure of the "Willendorf Venus"; measuring barely 11cm/4.5in. in height, it is a fertility statue dating from c. 25,000 BC Hallstatt finds (800-400 BC), which were discovered near Hallstatt in Upper Austria in the 19th and 20th C. and thus gave a phase of the Early Iron Age its name of "Hallstatt Period", include bronzes, grave gifts and remains of Illyrian wooden houses.

Anthropological Department (Upper Ground Floor) Rooms 16 and 17 of the Vienna Natural History Museum: The Osteological Collection includes a great number of human skulls from the Neo-Palaeolithic period to the present day. There is also a Somatological Collection.

Children's Room (Upper Ground Floor) Room 18 at the Vienna Natural History Museum is where children can enjoy colored picture books, play with microscopes and video recorders and carry out their own natural history research.

Domed Hall (First Floor) of Vienna's Natural History Museum has a skeleton of an extinct species of sea-cow (manatee).

Botanical Exhibition Gallery (First Floor) Room 21 at Vienna's Natural History Museum has models of fungi and forms of spores.

In Vienna's Natural History Museum's Zoological Department (First Floor) Rooms 22 to 39 is the collection which illustrates in impressive fashion the long evolution from the single cell to anthropoid apes, and provides detailed information on various species of vertebrates, insects and invertebrates.