It houses a collection of about 220,000 items relating to the ethnography, or cultural anthropology, of peoples from around the world, including from China, Korea, South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific region, the Americas and Africa.

Since 1999, it is a part of Swedish National Museums of World Culture and is also hosting the Sven Hedin Foundation.

[2] Among the oldest collections at the museum are objects gathered in the Swedish colony New Sweden and during the Cook expeditions in the 18th century.

However, the main part stems from the period 1850–1950 and is heavily influenced by the colonial era explorations, evangelisations and trade.

In 2007, after several years of negotiation, the museum agreed to return a totem pole to the Haisla Nation, from which it has been taken in 1929.