Nantong is the birthplace of China's museums, as it is home to the country's first museum – the Nantong Museum – founded by Zhang Jian, a local industrial magnate and scholar, in 1905.

The city currently has 29 museums, including 20 State-owned and nine private ones. Here are some lesser-known museums.

Nantong Tongzuo Furniture Museum

The Nantong Tongzuo Furniture Museum is located at No 88 Yongyi Road and focuses on the collection, exhibition, and research of Nantong-style furniture.

The museum was founded by Wang Jinxiang, a Nantong-style furniture craftsman, and his wife Chen Yun, and has been open for free to the public since Dec 2014.

The exhibition hall stretches over an area of more than 2,000 square meters, with more than 558 pieces of furniture, most of which are from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

They have been collected by the couple over the past 30 years and cost more than 30 million yuan ($4.65 million).

Traditional Chinese furniture is on display at the Nantong Tongzuo Furniture Museum. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Nantong Kite Museum

The Nantong Kite Museum is located in Jingye Temple in Beihaoqiaodong village and has nearly 500 sets of kites in its collections. More than 100 sets of kites are currently on display, along with tools for making kites.

Nantong boasts a long history of making kites, dating back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It is one of four major production areas for kites in China, with the others being Beijing, Tianjin, and Weifang.

According to the museum's curator Xu Junhua, Nantong has two types of kites. One is a modeling kite featuring a diverse array of shapes, such as butterflies and centipedes, while the other is the iconic banyao kite, a large, flat, whistling kite with a hexagonal frame adorned with exquisite decorations and vibrant colors.

A banyao kite is on display at the Nantong Kites Museum. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Nantong Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine

The Nantong Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine was founded by Zhu Liangchun (1917-2015), a famous doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.

Located on the bank of the Haohe River, it is the first private museum themed on TCM culture in Jiangsu province. The exhibition covers an area of more than 1,000 square meters and displays nearly 1,200 items, including ancient medical books, tools, and herb specimens.

"The museum comprehensively displays the history and current development situation of TCM in Nantong," said Zhang Qian, office manager of the museum.

Most of the narrators are TCM doctors, who offer daily healthcare tips to visitors when explaining the collections, said Zhang.