Tasmania · Attraction
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
Australia's largest regional museum
schedule 1 min read / Updated Jun 2026
The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, known as QVMAG, operates across two sites in Launceston and together forms the largest regional museum in Australia. The Museum at Inveresk occupies a set of 1870s railway workshop buildings and houses natural history, transport, and colonial heritage collections, while the Art Gallery at Royal Park presents a strong programme of Tasmanian and Australian art alongside a working planetarium.
The Inveresk museum is immediately impressive in scale: locomotives, suspended aircraft, horse-drawn buggies, and maritime artefacts fill the cavernous former workshops. Highlights include the thylacine collection, one of the most significant in the world, and an interactive science space for children. The building itself, with its timber trusses and brick floors, is as much an attraction as the objects inside.
The Royal Park gallery holds an acclaimed exhibition presenting Aboriginal Tasmanian history and culture through artefacts, oral histories, and artworks. The permanent collection spans colonial painting, contemporary photography, and decorative arts, and the temporary programme rotates frequently. The planetarium runs daily shows and live night-sky presentations.
Both venues are free to enter, with only the planetarium and selected special events requiring a ticket. The two sites are about two kilometres apart and both are easily accessible from the city centre by foot or by car.
Scenic views
