Penang’s museums and galleries are a wonderfully mixed bag. There are grand museums telling the story of the island, tiny collections hidden inside George Town shophouses, contemporary art galleries and some wonderfully eccentric places that are difficult to put into any particular category.
Unlike the big museums found in capital cities, Penang doesn’t have huge institutions where you can spend an entire day wandering from room to room. Most are relatively small and can be explored in 30-60 minutes, making them easy to slot into a day of sightseeing in Penang. Many are in George Town, so it’s simple to combine a museum with exploring the city’s historic streets, while there are interesting collections elsewhere on the island too.
They’re also great indoor options for a rainy day or when you desperately need some air conditioning. Here’s a look at the museums and galleries on offer on the island, with a quick overview of what to expect and links through to our full guides.
Museums & Heritage
1. Penang War Museum
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Open daily from 9am to 6pm
For a thought-provoking and often bleak glimpse into the island’s darkest period, Penang War Museum is an unmissable excursion. Originally a British fort built in the 1930s, the complex was taken over by the Japanese in 1942 and used as a prisoner of war camp.
Abandoned after the war, it has since been reclaimed from the jungle to serve as one of the most important war museums in Southeast Asia. Small details like bullet holes in the wall and the haunting remains of a guillotine stand are reminders of the horror that took place here.
2. Pinang Peranakan Mansion
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Open 9:30am to 5pm every day
With its distinctive green façade, Pinang Peranakan Mansion is a Chinese heritage mansion displaying the rich history of the Peranakans, also known as the Babas and Nyonyas, who were a prominent community of acculturated Chinese unique to this part of the world. They adopted selected customs and way of local Malays and colonial British to create a unique lifestyle and tradition.
Within the opulent house are over 1000 antiques from the era on display. But the house itself, which has been lovingly restored, is a fascinating architectural mix of Chinese woodwork, English floor tiles. and Scottish ironwork.
Tickets are priced at RM25 per person (children aged 6-12 Rm12, under 6s are free). While their website states that advance booking is required for tours, you can simply turn up without a reservation.
3. Penang Ferry Museum
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Open daily from 9am to 10pm
The Penang Ferry Museum, housed aboard the retired ferry Pulau Penang, offers a nostalgic look at one of the island’s most iconic modes of transport. For decades, Penang’s colourful double-decker ferries carried cars, motorcycles, and foot passengers between George Town and Butterworth, before being retired in 2020. This floating museum preserves their legacy through detailed exhibits, model replicas, and historic films.
Visitors can explore original areas of the vessel, including the bridge with its preserved controls and, for VIP ticket holders, the authentic engine room. Families will enjoy the interactive displays, children’s activity zone, and a painstakingly recreated model of Weld Quay, complete with trams, trishaws, and ships bringing the old harbourfront to life.
Located right beside George Town’s ferry terminal, the museum is easy to reach and makes for an engaging stop while exploring the city’s heritage zone. Whether reliving fond memories of the ferries or discovering their story for the first time, this museum offers a unique perspective on Penang’s history.
4. Penang State Museum, Lebuh Farquhar
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Open every day except Fridays from 9am to 5pm
Penang State Museum reopened in July 2026 after almost nine years of restoration, bringing new life and plenty of technology to one of George Town’s most historic buildings. The museum covers Penang’s history, from its school days and World War II to the development of George Town and the island’s wildlife.
Some of the interactive displays make clever use of technology and are visually beautiful. But unfortunately, the majority of the information is in Bahasa Malaysia. English (and only English) information is available via QR codes, where you access a PDF through Google Drive, making it frustrating to explore the exhibits, particularly for international visitors and children. This feels rather odd for a destination that prides itself on multiculturalism, where many residents speak multiple languages.
5. Sun Yat Sen Museum
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Open daily from 9am to 6pm
The Sun Yat Sen Museum on the quieter side of Armenian Street is a small but historically significant heritage house in George Town. In 1910, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat Sen stayed here with his family and used the house as a base to plan the Huanghuagang Uprising, a key step toward the 1911 Chinese Revolution.
Visitors can explore three ground-floor rooms: the entrance with historical displays, a central courtyard with a fountain and lightwell, and a preserved Nyonya kitchen. With entry fees of RM10 (adults) and RM5 (children), it’s a brief, fascinating stop perfect for a quick dive into Penang’s revolutionary past.
6. Straits & Oriental Museum
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Open every day from 9:30am to 6pm
The Straits & Oriental Museum is unlike most museums in George Town. Spread across three floors, this eclectic private collection brings together ancient Chinese ceramics, shipwreck treasures, antique furniture, coins, paintings, weapons and Chinese opera costumes, alongside exhibits covering Penang’s history, Malaya and WWII. Some of the ceramics recovered from the sea can even be handled, while QR codes provide free audio descriptions.
It’s a small, relaxed museum that feels more like stepping into a collector’s home than a conventional museum. Many of the pieces are also for sale, and there’s a small gift shop and café next door. Allow around 30 minutes, or longer if Chinese ceramics and antiques are your thing.
7. Teddyville Museum Batu Ferringhi
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Open 9am to 6pm every day
If you’ve heard about the Penang Teddyville Museum in Batu Ferringhi, you might be wondering whether it’s just a place to visit with young kids. After all, as cute as teddy bears can be, do they really justify a museum all to themselves?
As it turns out, this clever (and deceptively large) museum at the DoubleTree Resort is much more than just a collection of teddy bears and actually has something to offer everyone, especially if you’re interested in the history of Penang. You’ll see displays depicting Penang’s most famous sites, such as Kek Lok Si Temple, George Town UNESCO Heritage Area, Fort Cornwallis, and Penang Hill.
The detail and design of the teddy bears is intricate and manages to enhance the displays and dioramas, meaning adults and kids alike will always find something of interest. The information boards are well-written and explain different periods of Penang’s history, including pre-colonial, the arrival of the British, WWII, and modern-day.
Art & Culture
8. Penang State Art Gallery
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Open daily (except Fridays) from 9am to 5pm
Just behind Town Hall near George Town’s Esplanade, Penang State Art Gallery is a modest concrete building with a surprisingly rich collection of Malaysian art. Across two floors, visitors can explore traditional and contemporary works, including paintings by pioneers such as Yong Mun Sen, Abdullah Ariff, and Chuah Thean Teng. The ground floor houses the permanent collection, while the upper level features rotating exhibitions and special displays.
The gallery’s calm, open spaces make it a perfect indoor activity, especially on rainy days, and entry is free.
9. Batik Painting Museum Penang
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Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 6pm (closed Sundays and Mondays)
Walking along Armenian Street, you’d be forgiven for not noticing this unassuming gallery and museum, as many tourists no doubt do on their way to and from the Penang street art.
Set over three floors, the Batik Painting Museum Penang is more gallery than museum, showcasing as it does almost one hundred original batik paintings, although it also gives visitors an introduction and understanding of this exquisite art form.
Before you start looking around, you’ll be offered the chance to watch a ten-minute film explaining the batik painting process and some of the techniques used. It’s well worth watching and helps you to understand just how much skill and patience is needed to bring these detailed pieces of work to life.
10. Lin Xiang Xiong Gallery
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Open Tuesday to Thursday 2-5pm, Friday to Sunday 10am-5pm, closed Monday.
Opened in 2025 in a striking location on Penang’s east coast, Lin Xiang Xiong Art Gallery is a welcome addition to the island’s arts and cultural scene. The futuristic building is an impressive piece of modern architecture in its own right, perhaps more Singapore than Penang, and dominates a stretch of coastline usually neglected by tourists.
With its striking entrance area and bright contemporary artwork filling the space, the gallery makes an instant first impression on visitors, and this continues throughout, especially within the first-floor exhibition. Although some of this impact is lost on higher floors, it’s still a thought-provoking and interesting gallery to explore, and perfect for a rainy day.
11. Yahong Art Gallery
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Open 9am to 6pm Monday to Saturday (closed Sundays)
Penang was the home of Chuah Thean Teng, an artist who first combined the disciplines of fine art and batik to create batik paintings in the 1950s. You may have visited the Batik Painting Museum in George Town which provides an excellent introduction to the artist and the art form he created, but the Yahong Art Gallery in Batu Ferringhi has even more of his work, and that of his children who followed in his footsteps.
It’s a lovely change of pace to the rest of Batu Ferringhi and is a welcome retreat from the daytime heat. The batik paintings are displayed alongside traditional batik, carvings, jewellery and watercolours, so there’s plenty to view during your visit.
12. Asia Camera Museum
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Open 10am to 6pm every day
Considering that George Town offers so many interactive museums that encourage your photography, it seems apt that here you will also find the Asia Camera Museum.
This is a rather more serious museum where the visitor can explore a variety of cameras and photographic accessories from around the world, including Germany, Sweden, America, and Japan. Learn how films were developed in dark rooms, play around with tools that were used to repair cameras in the 1960s, and get to hold and feel vintage cameras.
The entrance fee is RM25 and includes a guided tour.
Interactive & Quirky
13. Upside Down Museum
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Open daily from 9:30am to 6:30pm
Create crazy photographs and defy gravity in a world where everything is the wrong way up. Then share your photos with family and friends back home to really confuse them.
Located in George Town, Penang’s Upside Down Museum is great fun for an hour to escape an afternoon downpour or the heat. Although if you’ve been to others around the world (they are particularly popular in Southeast Asian cities) then it may lack a little novelty.
14. Tech Dome Penang
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Click here for more information
Open daily from 10am to 7pm
Tech Dome Penang is Penang’s Science Museum, showcasing 120 interactive science and technology exhibits all under the one roof. This is a superb Penang indoor activity for any science-buffs!
Understand gravity with the G-Drop, code your bot around a maze, try and escape the laser beams, float balls with air, and take on the climbing wall. This science museum is brilliant fun and will get you thinking.
Tech Dome Penang is on Levels 4 and 5 of the Komtar building. The main entrance is on Level 5 where you’ll find the ticket gates. On the same level, near the main entrance, is the ticket office where tickets can be bought for the Tech Dome (and all the other activities in the Komtar building).
15. Ghost Museum Penang
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Open 10am to 7pm every day
Sometimes, you just need a change of pace, and a change of scenery. The heritage streets of George Town are wonderful places to soak in the history and culture of Penang, but if you need a break for an hour, the Ghost Museum on Malay Street might just be what you’re looking for.
Don’t expect a relaxing visit though, this three-storey museum is full of ghoulish models, scary stories and realistic zombie rooms. It’s a world away from what you’d normally experience in George Town so, if for no other reason than that, it might be worth some of your time.
Be warned, the Zombie room on the top floor is particularly scary and not a place we’d recommend taking young kids.
16. Penang 3D Trick Art Museum
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Open 9am to 6pm every day
You’d think that there was enough trickery-art museums in George Town. However, there seems to be room for another in the way of a 3D Trick Art Museum.
Let your imagination run wild and snap mind-bending photos and interact with the artwork as much as you want. There are over 40 optical illusion paintings and sculptures at this museum. Pose in front of a traditional Malaysian house, pretend to boat and fish along the river, or pretend to take on extreme sports!
17. Wonderfood Museum
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Open 9am to 6pm every day
If there’s one thing Penang is famous for above all else, it must be its cuisine and diverse food scene. The choice and selection of dishes on offer throughout the island can be overwhelming for visitors, so it perhaps makes sense to visit a museum dedicated to all things food and learn your Popiah from your Assam Laksa.
Wonderfood Museum is a quirky place on Beach Street that uses dioramas, interactive displays and oversized models to bring the menus, ingredients and flavours of Penang’s food scene to life. Although it sometimes does this with mixed results, it’s a fun place to visit and is well worth thirty minutes of your time if you’re in this part of George Town.
And in true Malaysian fashion, there are a lot of photo opportunities at this museum.
On Penang ebook
Updated for 2026, the On Penang ebook is the only travel guide you need for exploring the island of Penang. It is jam-packed with inspiration on what to do, where to eat, where to stay, and also includes a step-by-step self-guided walking tour of George Town (with photos).
This is a PDF download for use offline and on the go (and ad-free!). Save it to read on the plane to Malaysia, download to your phone to follow the self-guided walking tour, or print it off at home before you leave on your adventures and highlight all the bits you want to remember for your visit.
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Product on saleOn Penang ebookOriginal price was: £16.95.£6.78Current price is: £6.78.
Before your go, check out these useful reads for your visit:
The best things to do in Penang
14 BEST restaurants in Penang
Top tips for visiting Penang
One day Penang itinerary
Best hotels in Penang
How to get around Penang
A brief history of Penang
