Founded in 1838, ARTIS grew from a members’ society for studying living and preserved nature into Amsterdam’s historic zoo and museum landscape. Its grounds preserve nineteenth-century buildings and paths, while the Groote Museum invites visitors to reconsider how people have classified and related to the natural world.
Quick facts
ARTIS began in 1838 as Natura Artis Magistra, founded to promote knowledge of natural history through living animals and museum specimens.
The Groote Museum opened to society members in 1855; its restored butterfly staircase and upper-floor museum rooms preserve original nineteenth-century fabric.
ARTIS’s former ethnographic collection included more than 10,000 objects and moved in 1921 to the Colonial Institute, now the Tropenmuseum; the zoo is researching how colonial influence shaped its history and collections.
Get directions to Artis Royal Zoo. Confirm the visitor entrance and current access with the venue before travelling.
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ARTIS began not as a modern zoo but as a learned society with a broad ambition: to make natural history visible. Founded in Amsterdam in 1838 as Natura Artis Magistra, its Latin name is commonly rendered “nature is the teacher of art and science.” Bookseller and publisher G.F. Westerman and fellow founders J.W.H. Werlemann and J.J. Wijsmuller established the society in the Plantage, then a green district of estates and gardens beyond the crowded centre.
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Micropia
ARTIS-Micropia turns the microbial world into something visitors can observe: living cultures, microscopes and interactive exhibits connect microbes to bodies, food and ecosystems. It occupies a restored ARTIS landmark with a complex history of science, civic records and wartime resistance.
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Tropenmuseum
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