Most famous Museum Ships

As you know, we on Wikimapia do not tag vehicles, as they are movable objects. Though Wikimapia guidelines say that "planes and submarines, circuses and other movable objects may be added if they are unmovable at least for a week and staying still at the moment of adding". And that is what our today's article about. Let's take a look at most famous Museum Ships in the world. These legendary sea giants saw battles during many wars and rendered a good service for their nations. Today they are acting museums that attract thousands of tourist every year.

HMS Victory was built at Chatham Dockyard in 1759-65 as a first-rate ship for the British Navy. It fought in the battles such as Ushant and Cape St. Vincent, but was most famous when it was used as Admiral Lord Nelson's flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson won the battle but was killed during it. The ship was placed in this dry dock in 1922 and has stayed there since. Today the ship is a big tourist attraction at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, England and is the oldest commissioned warship.




USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. Named by President George Washington after the Constitution of the United States of America, she is the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat. Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. Built in Boston, Massachusetts, at Edmund Hartt's shipyard, her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.
Constitution is most famous for her actions during the War of 1812 against Great Britain, when she captured numerous merchant ships and defeated five British warships. She continued to actively serve the nation as flagship in the Mediterranean and African squadrons, and circled the world in the 1840s. During the American Civil War she served as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy and carried artwork and industrial displays to the Paris Exposition of 1878. Retired from active service in 1881, she served as a receiving ship until designated a museum ship in 1907 and in 1934 she completed a three-year, 90-port tour of the nation. Constitution sailed under her own power for her 200th birthday in 1997, and again in August 2012, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of her victory over Guerriere.
The mission of Constitution is to promote understanding of the Navy’s role in war and peace through active participation in public events and education through outreach programs, public access, and historic demonstration. Her crew of 60 officers and enlisted participate in ceremonies, educational programs, and special events while keeping the ship open to visitors year-round and providing free tours. The crewmen are all active-duty members of the U.S. Navy, and the assignment is considered to be special duty. Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world.




Aurora is a 1900 Russian protected cruiser, currently preserved as a museum ship in St. Petersburg. She battled the Japanese Navy in the Russo-Japanese War. One of the first incidents of the October Revolution in Russia took place on the cruiser Aurora. As a museum ship, the cruiser Aurora became one of the many tourist attractions of Saint Petersburg, and continued to be a symbol of the October Socialist Revolution and a prominent attribute of Russian history. In addition to the museum space, a part of the ship continued to house a naval crew whose duties included caring for the ship, providing security and participating in government and military ceremonies. The crew was considered to be on active duty and was subject to military training and laws.
Having long served as a museum ship, from 1984 to 1987 the cruiser was once again placed in her construction yard, the Admiralty Shipyard, for capital restoration. Aurora stands today as the oldest commissioned ship of the Russian Navy, still flying the naval ensign under which she was commissioned, but now under the care of the Central Naval Museum. She is still manned by an active service crew commanded by a Captain of the 1st Rank.
From 1956 to the present day 28 million people have visited the cruiser Aurora.




USS Missouri (BB-63) first launched into the East River on January 29, 1944, and was the final battleship built by the United States and the second-to-last in the world. During World War II, Missouri saw action at the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Okinawa, and shelled the Japanese home islands of Hokkaido and Honshū several times. During all its life USS MIssouri took part in the Korean War, participated in several Midshipmen training cruises, in 1984 she was extensively modernized for active service in the modern US Navy, spent couple of years taking part in exercises and good will cruises, than Misspuri was called to action again as part of Operation Earnest Will in 1987. Only four years later, Missouri would return to the Persian Gulf, this time as part of the US-led coalition intent on repulsing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
Missouri remained in commission for only a year after the Gulf War, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War she was deemed surplus to the needs of the Navy. USS Missouri was decommissioned for the final time on March 31, 1992. On May 4, 1998 she was donated to serve as a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, where her place in history as the site where the Second World War ended would be secure alongside the USS Arizona, where the Second World War began for the United States.




ORP Błyskawica is a historic Polish Grom-class destroyer serving in the Polish Navy during World War II, preserved as a museum in Gdynia. She is the only ship of the Polish Navy awarded with the Virtuti Militari medal, as well as the oldest preserved destroyer in the world. The name means Lightning. She was one of the two legendary Groms, the most heavily-armed and fastest destroyers on the seas of that times.

There is no special category on Wikimapia for museum ships yet, though we consider it might be very helpful. We encourage our users to pay attention to this fact. Let's improve Wikimapia together!