The National Museum of Ethnology

The National Museum of Ethnology is one of the largest museums in Japan. It is Japan's largest research institute in the humanities and social sciences, established in 1974 and opened to the public in 1977. It is built on the former Expo '70 sites in Svita, Osaka. The founding collection is known as the Attic Collection and is an ethnological collection of the early twentieth century, mostly Japanese materials, including some early finds of Jonah archaeological artifacts (in the Morse collection). Subsequent collections were collected for opening in 1977, and have been collecting ever since.

The collection focuses on films, photographs, sound recordings and objects that represent various aspects of everyday life: from agriculture to food, urban life, folk crafts and religion. Permanent galleries for all major regions of the world display only part of the complete collection.