Where to see the real thing

New York City, United States

Signature: One of the largest dinosaur fossil collections in the world, including a mounted Tyrannosaurus and Barosaurus

Its fourth-floor fossil halls were reorganized in the 1990s around cladistics, making it one of the first major museums to display specimens by evolutionary relationship rather than old-style classification.

London, United Kingdom

Signature: Diplodocus cast "Dippy" (now touring) and an original Iguanodon holotype material

Founded around the collections of Sir Richard Owen, who coined the word "Dinosauria" in 1842 — this museum's history is inseparable from the origin of the word itself.

Chicago, United States

Signature: SUE, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found

SUE was purchased at auction in 1997 for over $8 million, at the time a record for any fossil, and remains one of the most-studied T. rex specimens in the world.

Washington, D.C., United States

Signature: The "Nation's T. rex" and a fully renovated fossil hall (reopened 2019)

Its Deep Time fossil hall pairs dinosaurs with a running climate-history narrative, tying mass extinctions to present-day environmental change.

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

Signature: The Borealopelta nodosaur — the best-preserved armored dinosaur ever found

Built directly into the Alberta badlands where many of its specimens were unearthed, it's the only museum in Canada dedicated entirely to palaeontology.

Berlin, Germany

Signature: The tallest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world, a Giraffatitan (Brachiosaurus brancai)

Its sauropod material came from the Tendaguru expeditions in German East Africa (1909–1913), one of the largest fossil-collecting expeditions in history.

Trelew, Patagonia, Argentina

Signature: Patagotitan mayorum, one of the largest land animals known to science

Patagonia's fossil beds have produced some of the largest sauropods and largest theropods (Giganotosaurus) ever discovered, and this museum is the primary home for that research.

Beijing, China

Signature: Feathered dinosaur specimens from the Liaoning fossil beds

China's Jehol Biota fossil sites, studied largely through this institute, produced the exceptionally preserved feathered dinosaurs that reshaped the scientific understanding of the dinosaur-bird link in the 1990s and 2000s.

Pittsburgh, United States

Signature: Diplodocus carnegii — casts of which were gifted by Andrew Carnegie to museums worldwide

Andrew Carnegie funded the original excavation and then paid to have plaster casts sent to European heads of state, making this one specimen among the most-replicated fossils on Earth.

Jensen, Utah / Dinosaur, Colorado, United States

Signature: An in-situ quarry wall with over 1,500 exposed fossil bones

Rather than displaying fossils removed to a museum hall, its main exhibit is a tilted rock wall left exactly as excavated, bones still embedded in the stone.

Sydney, Australia

Signature: Muttaburrasaurus and other Australian dinosaur material

Australia's fossil record for dinosaurs is comparatively sparse due to geology and land access, making this collection an important anchor for Southern Hemisphere research.

Zigong, Sichuan, China

Signature: Built over an active Jurassic-age fossil quarry with over 200 specimens on site

One of the few museums in the world constructed directly atop the dig site, with a working excavation still visible to visitors.