Королевский музей Центральной Африки в Тервюрене

Museum of ethnography and natural history in Tervuren, Belgium

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) (Koninklijk Museum voor Midden Afrika (KMMA); ; Königliches Museum für Zentralafrika (KMZA)), communicating under the name AfricaMuseum since 2018, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was originally built to showcase King Leopold II's Congo Free State in the International Exposition of 1897. The museum focuses on the Congo, a former Belgian colony. The sphere of interest, however, especially in biological research, extends to the whole Congo Basin, Central Africa, East Africa, and West Africa, attempting to integrate "Africa" as a whole. Intended originally as a colonial museum, from 1960 onwards it has focused more on ethnography and anthropology. Like most museums, it houses a research department in addition to its public exhibit department. Not all research pertains to Africa (e. g. research on the archaeozoology of Sagalassos, Turkey). Some researchers have strong ties with the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. In November 2013, the museum closed for extensive renovation work, including the construction of new exhibition space, and re opened in December 2018.

After the Congo Free State was recognised by the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, King Leopold II wanted to publicise the civilising mission and the economic opportunities available in his private colony to a wider public, both in Belgium and internationally. After considering other places, the king decided to have a temporary Seven of them, however, did not survive their forced stay in Belgium.

The exhibition's success led to the permanent establishment, in 1898, of the Museum of the Congo (, Museum van Kongo), a museum and a scientific institution for the dissemination of colonial propaganda and support for Belgium's colonial activities, and a permanent exhibition was installed in the Palace of the Colonies. A decade later, in 1912, a small, similar museum—the Musée africain de Namur—was opened in Namur. The museum began to support academic research, but due to the avid collecting of the scientists, the collection soon grew too large for the museum and enlargement was needed. Tervuren, which had become a rich suburb of Brussels, was once again chosen as the location of the enlarged museum. The new museum started construction in 1904 and was designed by the French architect Charles Girault in neoclassical "palace" architecture, reminiscent of the Petit Palais in Paris, with large gardens extending into the Tervuren Forest (a part of the Sonian Forest). It was officially opened in 1910, a year after the death of Leopold II, by his successor, King Albert I, and named the Museum of the Belgian Congo (, Museum van Belgisch Kongo). The following years saw the consolidation and enlargement of the museum's collections. In 1934, the museum's herbarium was transferred to the National Botanic Garden of Belgium (today's Meise Botanic Garden in Meise, Flemish Brabant). In 1952, the adjective "Royal" was added to the museum's name. In preparation for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo '58), in 1957, a large building was constructed to accommodate the African personnel working in the exhibition: the Centre d'Accueil du Personnel Africain (CAPA). In 1960, following the independence of the Congo, the museum's name was changed to its current name: the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Koninklijk Museum voor Midden Afrika or KMMA, or MRAC, Königliches Museum für Zentralafrika or KMZA).

By the turn of the millennium, the museum was in need of a thorough renovation. The more than 100 year old central building was no longer adapted to the needs of a current museum operation. Besides, the permanent exhibition was outdated and its presentation not very critical of the colonial history. A new scenography was thus urgently required. Renamed AfricaMuseum, the museum was reopened on 9 December 2018. Some of the colonial statues once displayed in the museum were moved in 2023 to areas where only guided tours visit.

The current AfricaMuseum complex consists of six buildings. The centrally located main building houses the permanent exhibitions. It was built under Leopold II by the French architect Charles Girault. The Centre d'Accueil du Personnel Africain (CAPA) building, erected in 1957 for the African staff, houses several scientific departments. Following the museum's complete renovation, a part of the previously scattered archives are now presented in new on site exhibition spaces. A reception pavilion, newly built in 2016, between the management building and the Palace of Africa, functions as the entrance building. In this building are the ticket offices, cloakrooms, a shop, a restaurant, as well as a picnic area for children. An underground gallery leads from the reception building into the existing museum building. This space is also used for temporary exhibitions. In the museum's enclosed courtyard, a sunken garden with a light shaft was added, bringing light to this underground level. the objects and animals on display in the main building make up less than 5% of the total museum's collection:
The Department of Zoology has over 10,000,000 specimens, including 6,000,000 insects and 1,000,000 fish. The Department of Geology and Mineralogy holds more than 56,000 wood samples in its xylotheque, as well as 200,000 rock samples and 17,000 minerals. The Department of Cultural Anthropology can boast of 120,000 ethnographic objects (1,600 of which are in the exhibition rooms). The ethnomusicology collection comprises 8,000 musical instruments, as well as 2,500 hours of recordings of traditional music from sub Saharan Africa, in particular in Central Africa (Congo, Rwanda and Burundi), of which the oldest dates back to 1910 (wax Edison scrolls). Additionally, more than 500,000 films and photos are kept in the film and photo libraries. Finally, the Department of History and General Scientific Services manages thousands of historical objects and 350 archives, including some of Henry Morton Stanley's journals. Some of the collections are digitally accessible. The herbarium collection of the then Congo Museum was transferred to that of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium in 1934.

There has been controversy surrounding the Royal Museum for Central Africa. It had previously been called a museum that "has remained frozen in time". The exhibition was praised by the international press, with French newspaper Le Monde claiming that "the museum has done better than revisit a particularly stormy page in history [it] has pushed the public to join it in looking into the reality of colonialism." Hochschild himself had a mixed critique of the renovated museum.