This excellent museum chronicles Phuket’s history, from prehistoric Andaman inhabitants to the tin-mining era, with Thai and English displays. It traces southern Thailand's varied ethnicities and dialects, and recounts the legend of the ‘two heroines’ (immortalised on the nearby Heroines Monument), who supposedly drove off an 18th-century Burmese invasion by convincing the island’s women to dress like men. The prize entrance-hall artefact is a 2.3m-tall 9th-century stone statue of Vishnu, found in Takua Pa in the early 20th century.
It's 200m northeast of the Heroines Monument, on Rte 4027.
