Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in Santa Barbara, California.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History organization is a 501(c)(3) non-profit which operates both a flagship Mission Canyon campus located along Mission Creek in the Upper Eastside, and the ocean-focused Sea Center located on Stearns Warf. As of 2023, the museum served about 230,000 visitors annually, with attendance split roughly evenly across its two campuses.

The museum has a variety of indoor exhibit halls and outdoor spaces to provide additional hands-on and interactive learning opportunities to visitors. Permanent exhibits focus on regional natural history, including native wildlife (particularly botany, entomology, mammalogy, and ornithology), marine life, and the history of native Chumash people. Additional exhibits focus on astronomy, geology, paleontology, and the area's unique Mediterranean climate. Among the facilities are a historic research library, the Palmer Observatory, and the John & Peggy Maximus Gallery, housing a collection of over 5,000 antique nature prints and illustrations. The museum claims to host the only full-dome planetarium on the Central Coast.