Leipzig is hosting a considerable number of museums with a focus on reserach and teaching. Particularly important are the Grassi Museum for Ethnology and the German Museum of Books and Writing. Moreover, the university is running four important museums, and the city of Leipzig is operating the Leipzig Natural History Museum and the School Museum.

The university collections are used to document and preserve the physical objects of research. They support the teaching by providing a tactile context for historical or abstract concepts, and by communicating overarching concepts in hands-on narratives. Regularly they are open for public audiences in guided tours and public events.

The Botanical Garden at Leipzig University is the oldest of its kind in Germany and can even be considered one of the oldest gardens in Europe along with Pisa, Padua and Florence. In its more than 450-year history, it has been relocated four times within the city limits of Leipzig. Since 1876 it resides at its current location in Linnéstraße. Today, the Botanical Garden, as a garden of diversity, is not only used for teaching and research, but also as a meeting place for the transfer of knowledge between the university and society.

The German National Library is the central archive library for all media works in German from Germany and abroad. The building complex also houses the German Music Archive and the German Museum for Books and Writing. Hence, the German National Library is a library, and archive, a museum, and a forum of public exchange. The German National Library is a place of freedom of information and expression, which aims to inspire and at the same time encourage critical thinking with a comprehensive program of events and hands-on activities.

The medical history collections at theKarl Sudhoff Institute go back to the fundamental Leipzig research work of Karl Sudhoff (1853 – 1938). Since then, the collection has been continuously expanded through purchases, donations and bequests. Most of the objects date from the last decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. A small part even dates back to the 16th century. Selected objects and special exhibitions can now be seen in new premises on the campus of the University Medical Center.

The Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig (English: Forum of Contemporary History) is a venue of political-historic education, and one of four museums of the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Foundation. The permanent exhibition Our History. Dictatorship and Democracy after 1945 takes visitors on a journey through history – from the years after the Second World War to life in former East Germany and today’s Federal Republic of Germany. Furthermore the forum presents special exhibitions on topics of relevance to the German civil society, and it offers a thriving cultural program with film exhibitions, talks, round-table discussions, and conferences.

Numerous university professors set up collections to support their teaching, and in the 19th centrury a number of Leipzig buisinessmen (and their wifes) established famous private collections. From these roots emerged a considerable number of important scientific museums and collections in Leipzig.

The INSPIRATA is a non-profit association that has set itself the task of supporting mathematical and scientific education. This objective is realized in the format of a hands-on museum, where children of all ages can engage in exciting experiments. The museum also offers group tours and workshops for school classes, as well as other activities in the STEM subjects. In the permanent exhibition, which is always open on Saturdays for young and old, you too can rekindle your enthusiasm for the natural sciences.

Thanks to the work of generations of geoscientists at the Institute and donations from important collectors and patrons, the Geological-Palaeontological Collection at Leipzig University has grown into one of the largest and most important fossil and rock collections in the German university landscape. Today, the teaching and research repository contains around 85,000 items, spread across 1780 collection drawers in 110 collection cabinets. The items in the collection bring the diverse geological past of Saxony and Central Germany to life. Since mid-May 2019, they can once again be admired in their historic rooms. Regular events and special exhibitions provide the general public with geoscientific and palaeontological knowledge about Saxony, Central Germany and the world.

In general, maps serve to impart knowledge, act as orientation aids in the terrain, are contemporary witnesses and often also works of art. They document current and historical conditions of topographical and thematic content of any kind. The Geoscientific Map Collection of the Institute of Geography is a teaching collection comprising over 33,000 inventoried maps, atlases, travel and specialist literature and explanatory notes. The majority of the objects (approx. 26,900) are recorded electronically, can be accessed internally in a database or are also available online. The premises of the collection can be visited by appointment or during the opening hours of the collection.

The collection of the first Zoological Museum was opened in 1837 by the first Chair of Zoology, Eduard Friedrich Poeppig Eduard Friedrich Poeppig. From 1907, the taxidermist Hermanus Hendrikus ter Meer from Leiden made a decisive contribution with the dermoplastic technique: this made it possible to prepare vertebrates in a proportionate and therefore lifelike manner. In the 1960s a large part of the collection was transferred to other museums, in particular the Leipzig Natural History Museum.