Long An Palace – Hue Royal Antiquities Museum

The most beautiful timber palace in Hue, built in 1845 and now housing the finest collection of Nguyen court treasures: royal robes, porcelain, thrones and palanquins.

Long An Palace was built in 1845 for Emperor Thieu Tri as part of a riverside retreat, then dismantled and re-erected on its present site near the Citadel in 1909 to house a museum. It is widely regarded as the most exquisite wooden building in Hue: 128 ironwood columns support a roof of two stacked tiers, and the panels and beams are inlaid with poems by the emperor, several of them palindromes that can be read in multiple directions. Since 1923 it has been the Museum of Royal Antiquities, displaying thousands of objects from the Nguyen court, including embroidered dragon robes, imperial seals, blue-and-white porcelain ordered from China, gilded thrones, palanquins and musical instruments, alongside a garden of cannon and stone sculpture. Photography inside is restricted. It is a short walk from the Imperial City and covered by a combined ticket, and an ideal place to see the objects that the empty palaces once held.