A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on seas and lakes. A naval museum focuses on navies and military use of the sea. A museum is typically a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. ... Italian ship-rigged vessel Amerigo Vespucci in New York harbor, 1976. ... Sunset at sea Wiktionary has a definition of: Sea Wiktionary has a definition of: maritime A sea is a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, or a large, usually saline, lake that lacks a natural outlet such as the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea. ... A lake is a body of water surrounded by land. ... U.S. Navy supercarrier USS Nimitz on November 3, 2003. ...

The great prize of a maritime museum is a historic ship (or a replica) made accessible as a museum ship, but as these are large and require a considerable budget to maintain, most museums exhibit interesting pieces of ships (such as a figurehead or cannon), ship models, and miscellaneous small items like cutlery, uniforms, and so forth. A museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is an old ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public. ... A figurehead is a person, usually in a political role, who may hold an important title or office yet executes little actual power. ... A small cast-iron cannon on a carriage A cannon is any large tubular firearm designed to fire a heavy projectile over a considerable distance. ... Looking for a model ship, Cick here SHIP MODEL FACTORY Prisoner-of-war model at the Rosenborg Slot in Copenhagen. ... Starch-polyester disposable cutlery Cutlery refers to any hand utensil used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food. ... This page describes uniform in the sense of clothing. ...

Ship modellers often have a close association with maritime museums; not only does the museum have items that help the modeller achieve better accuracy, but the museum provides a display space for models larger than will comfortably fit in a modeler's home; and of course the museum is happy to take a ship model as a donation. Museums will also commission models.

There are thousands of maritime museums in the world. Many belong to the International Congress of Maritime Museums (ICMM), which coordinates members' efforts to acquire, preserve, and display their material.

At 40 acres (162,000 m²), Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut can lay claim to the title of largest museum; it preserves not only a number of sailing ships, but also a large number of original seaport buildings, including a ship chandlery, sail loft, ropewalk, and so forth. However, the UK's National Maritime Museum in Greenwich is also a contender, with many items of great historical significance, such as the actual uniform worn by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Mystic Seaport is a maritime museum in Mystic, Connecticut. ... A coffeeshop along Main Street in Mystic Mystic is a census-designated place located in New London County, Connecticut. ... Traditional wooden cutter beating. ... The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom, and one of the most important in the world. ... Greenwich (pronounced gren-itch , or by the locals) is a town, now part of the south eastern urban sprawl of London, on the south bank of the river Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich. ... Lord Nelson Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (September 29, 1758 – October 21, 1805) was a British admiral who won fame as a leading naval commander. ... The Battle of Trafalgar, fought on 21 October 1805, was the most significant naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars and the pivotal naval battle of the 19th century. ...

A recent activity of maritime museums is to build replicas of ships, since there are few survivors that have not already been restored and put on display.

Notable maritime museums:

• Australian National Maritime Museum
• Baltimore Maritime Museum (Baltimore, MD, US)
• Coral World (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands)
• Mariners' Museum (US)
• Maritime Museum of the Atlantic (Halifax)
• Maritime Museum of San Diego
• Museum of Maritime Science (Tokyo, Japan)
• Mystic Seaport (US)
• National Maritime Museum (UK)
• San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
• Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam [1]
• Vasa Museum (Stockholm)
• Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin
• Museum of the World Ocean, Kaliningrad, Russia
• Maritime Museum Ria de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, [2]

HMAS Onslow and HMAS Vampire at the Australian National Maritime Museum The Australian National Maritime Museum is a national maritime museum operated as an independent austhority of the Government of Australia, and is at Darling Harbour in Sydney, New South Wales. ... The Baltimore Maritime Museum is a maritime museum located in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore in the United States. ... Coral World is a marine park located in the island of St. ... Saint Thomas is an island in the Caribbean Sea and a constituent of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). ... The Mariners Museum is located in Newport News, Virginia. ... The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a maritime museum located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. ... The modern skyline of Tokyo is highly decentralized. ... Mystic Seaport is a maritime museum in Mystic, Connecticut. ... The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom, and one of the most important in the world. ... The historic fleet moored at Hyde Street Pier, with Alcatraz and Angel Island in the background. ... Amsterdam Location Country The Netherlands Province North Holland Population 739,295 (1 January 2005) Coordinates 4°89E - 52°37N Website www. ... The Vasa Museum (Vasa Museet), located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden, is a maritime museum that displays the worlds only surviving 17th century ship, HMS Wasa. ... The Wisconsin Maritime Museum is a maritime museum founded in 1968 as the Manitowoc Maritime Museum to ensure that the maritime heritage of Manitowoc, Wisconsin and the Great Lakes would not be forgotten. ... Manitowoc (pronounced Ma-nih-toe-wok) is the county seat of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. ... One of the periods of glaciation was also termed the Wisconsin glaciation. ... Locator map on an international level map of Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad ( Russian: Калининград, German: Königsberg, Polish: Królewiec, Lithuanian Karaliaučius ), seaport city, capital and main city of the Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania with access to the Baltic Sea. ... Cityscape of Bilbao, with the Guggenheim Museum on the bottom right Bilbao from satellite (NASA World Wind Landsat) Bilbao (Basque: Bilbo) is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Pais Vasco and the capital of the province of Vizcaya (Basque: Bizkaia). ...

References

• Robert H. Smith, Smith's Guide to Maritime Museums of North America, 3 vols. (1stBooks Library, 2002) ISBN 0759690448, ISBN 0759691444, ISBN 0759691290
• Joseph Stanford, Sea History's Guide to American and Canadian Maritime Museums (National Maritime Historical Society, 1990) ISBN 0930248031

Robert H. Smith (19?? - ) is a successful builder-developer. ...

External links

• ICMM website
• List of lists of maritime museums
• Maritime and Naval Museums in Britain and Ireland
• USA museum list
• Non-USA museum list
• Maritime Museums worldwide