Knowledge (XXG)

National archives are central archives maintained by countries or nation states. This article contains a list of national archives. In some countries, national libraries serve the same purpose as national archives - or have archival departments.

Among their more important tasks is ensuring the accessibility and preservation of the information produced by governments, both analogically and digitally, for the government itself, researchers and the public.

Some national archives collections are large, holding millions of items spanning several centuries, while others have been created more recently and have modest collections. Many national archives are effectively dispersed, especially in post-colonial countries, and often have smaller local collections due to cultural imperialism and the theft of cultural and national documents and artifacts. There are ongoing international efforts to repatriate these materials to their communities of origin, in particular Indigenous cultural and intellectual property.

In the last decade, digitization projects have made possible to browse records and contents online.

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Afghanistan	National Archives of Afghanistan	Kabul	1890
Albania	General Directorate of Archives	Tirana	1949		Codex Beratinus Codex Beratinus II Elbasan Gospel Manuscript
Algeria	Centre Nationale des Archives	Birkhadem, Algiers
American Samoa	American Samoa's Office of Archives and Records Management	Tutuila	1978
Andorra	National Archives of Andorra	Andorra la Vella	1975
Angola	Arquivo Histórico Nacional	Luanda
Antigua and Barbuda	Antigua and Barbuda National Archives	St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda	1982
Argentina	General Archive of the Nation	Buenos Aires	1821	800,000 photographs 100,000 volumes 3,000 films
Armenia	National Archives of Armenia	Yerevan	1923
Aruba	National Archives of Aruba	Oranjestad	1994
Australia	National Archives of Australia	Canberra	1961	40,000,000 items	Griffin drawings Mildenhall photographic collection
	National Film and Sound Archive		1984	2,800,000 items
Austria	Austrian State Archives	Vienna	1749
Azerbaijan	National Archive Department of Azerbaijan	Baku	2002

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Bahamas	National Archives of the Bahamas	Nassau	1971
Bahrain	National Library of Bahrain at Isa Cultural Centre	Manama	2008
Bangladesh	National Archives of Bangladesh	Dhaka	1973	225,000 volumes
Barbados	National Archives of Barbados	Bridgetown
	West Indies Federal Archives Centre	Cave Hill, Saint Michael, Barbados	2004
Belarus	National Archives of Belarus	Minsk	1927
Belgium	National Archives of Belgium	Brussels
Belize	National Archives of Belize	Belmopan
Benin	National Archives of Benin	Porto-Novo	1914
Bermuda	Bermuda National Library	Hamilton, Bermuda	1839
Bhutan	National Library & Archives of Bhutan	Thimphu	1967
Bolivia	National Archive and Library of Bolivia	Sucre	1836	114,000 volumes
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sarajevo
Botswana	National Archives of Botswana	Gaborone	1967	20,000 items
Brazil	Arquivo Nacional	Rio de Janeiro	1838	1,740,000 photographs 124,000 films 44,000 maps 20,000 illustrations 4,000 videotapes
British Virgin Islands	Archives and Records Management Unit, Governor's Office	Road Town
Brunei	Brunei National Archives	Bandar Seri Begawan	1983
Bulgaria	Bulgarian Archives State Agency	Sofia
Burkina Faso	National Archives Centre	Ouagadougou
Burundi	DMS Burundi	Bujumbura

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Cambodia	National Archives of Cambodia	Phnom Penh
Cameroon	National Archives of Cameroon	Yaoundé	1966	64,000 volumes
Canada	Library and Archives Canada	Ottawa	2004	30,000,000 photographs 20,000,000 books 3,000,000 architectural drawings, plans and maps 425,000 works of art 550,000 music items 90,000 films
Cape Verde	Arquivo Histórico Nacional	Praia	1988
Cayman Islands	Cayman Islands National Archive	George Town, Cayman Islands	1991
Chad	Archives Nationales du Tchad
Chile	National Archives of Chile	Santiago	1927
China	National Archives Administration of China (a.k.a. the Central Archives)	Beijing	1954	80,000,000 items
Colombia	General Archive of the Nation	Bogotá	1989
Comoros	Comoros National Library	Moroni, Comoros	1979
Republic of the Congo	Archives Nationales du Congo	Brazzaville
Cook Islands	National Archives of the Cook Islands		1974	4,000 photographs
Costa Rica	National Archives of Costa Rica	San José	1881
Croatia	Croatian State Archives	Zagreb	1763
Cuba	Archivo Nacional de la República de Cuba	Havana	1840
Curacao	Nationaal Archief Curacao	Willemstad
Cyprus	Cyprus State Archives	Nicosia	1972
Czech Republic	National Archives	Prague			Golden Bull of Sicily Zemské desky

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Democratic Republic of the Congo	Institut National des Archives du Congo	Kinshasa	1989	3,000 volumes
Denmark	Danish National Archives	Copenhagen	1889
Djibouti	Archives Nationales et Bibliotheque de Djibouti	Balbala
Dominica	Dominica Library & Information Service	Roseau	1843
Dominican Republic	Archivo General de la Nación de República Dominicana	Santo Domingo	1935

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
East Timor	National Archives of East Timor	Dili	1999
	Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum		2005
Ecuador	National Archives of Ecuador	Quito	1884
Egypt	Egyptian National Library and Archives	Cairo	1870
El Salvador	National Library of El Salvador	San Salvador	2023
Eritrea	National Archives of Eritrea	Asmara
Estonia	National Archives of Estonia	Tartu	1999
Eswatini	Eswatini National Archives	Lobamba	1971
Ethiopia	National Archives and Library of Ethiopia	Addis Ababa	1944

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Falkland Islands	Jane Cameron National Archives	Stanley	1841
Faroe Islands	National Archives of the Faroe Islands	Tórshavn	1932
Fiji	National Archives of Fiji	Suva	1954
Finland	National Archives of Finland	Helsinki	1816	726,000 maps 334,000 volumes
France	Archives Nationales	Paris and Pierrefitte-sur-Seine	1790

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Gabon	Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Gabon	Libreville	1969
Gambia	The Gambia National Records Service	Banjul	1966		Audio recordings and oral histories in various Mande, Niger–Congo and Atlantic–Congo languages - including Mandinka, Fula, Wolof, Jola, Krio, Soninke, Manjak, Serer and Karoninka. Pre-colonial and rare colonial texts containing documentation, data, social histories, women's histories and plant knowledge
Georgia	National Archives of Georgia	Tbilisi	1920	274,625 photographs
Germany	German Federal Archives	Koblenz	1952
Ghana	National Archives of Ghana (until 1997)	Accra
	Public Records and Archives Administration Department		1997
Gibraltar	Gibraltar Archives	Gibraltar	1969
Greece	General State Archives	Psychiko	1914
Greenland	Greenland National Museum	Nuuk	1982		Ammassalik wooden maps 15th-century mummies and clothing of the Thule / Greenlandic Inuit culture at the Qilakitsoq archaeological site Pearyland Umiaq, the oldest intact skin boat in the world Over 35,000 repatriated cultural objects, originally held in the collections of the National Museum of Denmark
Grenada	Grenada National Museum	St. George's	1959		Grenada Plantation Records, 1737-1845
Guam	Guam Museum	Hagåtña	1980
Guatemala	Archivo General de Centro América	Guatemala City	1846	Documents dating from 1537 onwards - relating to government, commerce, colonialism, revolutions, religion and more
	Guatemala National Police Archives		Discovered in 2005	80 million pages of documents from, dating from the late 19th-century through the Guatemalan Civil War	Largest recovered collection of state secrets in Latin America Documents detailing kidnappings, torture, murders, and disappearances of the estimated 200,000 civilians who perished during the Guatemalan Civil War
Guinea	National Archives of Guinea	Conakry
Guinea-Bissau	Arquivos Históricos Nacionais da República da Guiné-Bissau	Bissau	1984
Guyana	National Archives of Guyana (a.k.a. the Walter Rodney Archives)	Georgetown, Guyana	1958

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Haiti	Archives Nationales d'Haïti	Port-au-Prince	1860
Honduras	Archivo Nacional de Honduras	Tegucigalpa	1880
Hong Kong	Government Records Service	Kwun Tong, Kowloon	1989
Hungary	National Archives of Hungary	Budapest	1756

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Iceland	National Archives of Iceland	Reykjavík	1882
India	National Archives of India	New Delhi	1891
Indonesia	National Archives of Indonesia	Jakarta	1819		Largest global archival collection related to the Dutch East India Company
Iran	National Library and Archive of Iran	Tehran	1899	55,000 old books, including 28,158 manuscripts and more than 26,000 lithographs featuring old lead printing An Iranian Studies collection that includes 80,410 books, 2,300 dissertations and 6000 journals An Islam Studies collection with 8,203,238 books, magazines and tapes The library has 14 halls with 15 million library items	Smallest known octagonal Quran (3 x 3.3 cm), قرآن هشت ضلعی
Iraq	Iraq National Library and Archive	Baghdad	1920		One of the oldest copies of the Quran (which was destroyed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States)
Ireland	National Archives of Ireland	Dublin	1867		Primary (Griffith) Valuation, 1847-1864 land and buildings value directory
Isle of Man	Manx Museum	Douglas, Isle of Man	1922
Israel	Israel State Archives	Jerusalem	1949	400 million documents, maps, stamps, audio tapes, video clips, photographs and special publications
	Central Zionist Archives	West Jerusalem	1919		Personal papers of Theodor Herzl, Nahum Sokolow, David Wolffsohn, Max Bodenheimer, Henrietta Szold, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Haim Arlosoroff and other functionaries of the Zionist movement Files of the General Council (Va'ad Leumi)
Italy	Central Archives of the State	Rome	1875
Ivory Coast	Archives Nationales du Côte d´Ivoire	Abidjan

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Jamaica	Jamaica Archives and Records Department	Kingston, Jamaica	1955
Japan	National Archives of Japan	Chiyoda, Tokyo	1959
Jordan	National Library of Jordan	Amman	1977

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Kazakhstan	National Archives of Kazakhstan	Astana	2002
	Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan	Almaty
	Republic of Kazakhstan Presidential Archive
Kenya	Kenya National Archives	Nairobi	1965	40,000 volumes
Kiribati	Kiribati National Library and Archives	Bairiki
Kosovo	National Library of Kosovo	Pristina	1944	382,806 books
	State Agency of Archives of Kosovo		1977
Kuwait	National Library of Kuwait	Kuwait City	1923	465,000 books
Kyrgyzstan	National Library of the Kyrgyz Republic	Bishkek	1934
	Central State Archives of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Lebanon	Centre des Archives Nationales	Beirut
Liberia	Center for National Documents and Records	Monrovia	1977
Libya	National Archives of Libya	Tripoli, Libya
Liechtenstein	National Archives of Liechtenstein
Lithuania	Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania	Vilnius
Luxembourg	Archives nationales de Luxembourg (ANLux)

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Madagascar	National Archives of Madagascar			30,000 volumes
Malawi	National Archives of Malawi
Malaysia	National Archives of Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	1957
Mali	Direction Nationale des Archives du Mali	Bamako
Malta	National Archives of Malta	Rabat, Malta
Marshall Islands	Alele Museum & Public Library
Mauritania	National Archives of Mauritania		1955	3,000 volumes
Mauritius	National Archives of Mauritius	Coromandel, Mauritius	1815
Mexico	Archivo General de la Nación	Mexico City
Mongolia	National Archives of Mongolia	Ulaanbaatar	1927
Montenegro	State Archives of Montenegro	Cetinje	1951
Morocco	National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco	Rabat	1924
Mozambique	Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique		1934
Myanmar	National Archives of Myanmar	Naypyidaw	1973

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Namibia	National Archives of Namibia	Windhoek	1939	6,000 maps 40,000 photographs 30,000 audiovisual items
Netherlands	Nationaal Archief	The Hague	1802
New Zealand	Archives New Zealand	Wellington
Nicaragua	General National Archive	Managua
Niger	Archives nationales du Niger
Nigeria	National Archives of Nigeria	Abuja
Norway	National Archival Services of Norway	Oslo	1817

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Pakistan	National Archives of Pakistan	Islamabad		19,000 books
Palestine	Palestine National Archives	Ramallah
	Central Archives of Gaza City	Gaza City
	Al-Budeiri Library	Old City of Jerusalem		900 manuscripts
	Khalidi Library		1900		One of Ottoman Palestine's first public libraries and historical document collections
Panama	National Archives of Panama	Panama City	1912
Paraguay	Archivo Nacional de Asunción
Peru	General Archive of the Nation	Lima	1872
Philippines	National Archives of the Philippines	Manila
Poland	Central Archives of Historical Records	Warsaw	1808
	National Digital Archives		2008 (1955)	over 15,000,000 photographs over 40,000 sound recordings about 2,400 motion pictures
Portugal	Torre do Tombo National Archive	Lisbon	1378
Puerto Rico	Archivo General de Puerto Rico	San Juan, Puerto Rico	1955

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Romania	National Archives of Romania	Bucharest		70,000 books
Russia	Russian State Archive of Contemporary History	Moscow
	Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History
	Russian State Archive of Literature and Art		1941
	State Archive of the Russian Federation		1992
Rwanda	National Archives of Rwanda	Kigali

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic	Saharawi National Archive
San Marino	State Archives of San Marino
Scotland	National Archives of Scotland	Edinburgh
Senegal	National Archives of Senegal	Dakar
Serbia	Archive of Serbia	Belgrade	1900
Seychelles	Seychelles National Archives	Mahé, Seychelles	1964
Singapore	National Archives of Singapore
Slovakia	Slovak National Archives	Bratislava	1928
Slovenia	Archives of the Republic of Slovenia	Ljubljana
South Africa	National Archives and Records Service of South Africa	Arcadia, Pretoria
South Korea	National Archives of Korea	Daejeon
South Sudan	National Archives of South Sudan	Juba
Spain	Archivo Histórico Nacional [es]	Madrid	1866
	General Archive of the Indies	Seville		43,000 volumes 80,000,000 pages
	Archivo General de Simancas	Simancas
Sri Lanka	Department of National Archives	Colombo
Sudan	National Records Office of Sudan	Khartoum		13,000 volumes 20,000,000 documents
Suriname	National Archives of Suriname	Paramaribo
Sweden	National Archives of Sweden	Stockholm
Switzerland	Swiss Federal Archives	Bern	1798
	Swiss Literary Archives		1991
	Swiss Film Archive	Lausanne		85,000 films 26,000 books 3,000,000 photographs
	Swiss National Sound Archives	Lugano	1984

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Taiwan	National Archives Administration, National Development Council
Tanzania	Tanzania National Archives	Dar es Salaam	1962
Thailand	National Archives of Thailand	Bangkok		444,009 photographs 808,693 films 20,062 maps and plans
	Thai Film Archive	Nakhon Pathom province
Togo	National Archives of Togo	Lomé
Trinidad and Tobago	National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago	Port of Spain
Tunisia	National Archives of Tunisia	Tunis
Turkey	Ottoman archives	Istanbul

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Ukraine	State Archival Service of Ukraine
United Arab Emirates	National Library and Archives	Abu Dhabi	1968
United Kingdom	The National Archives	Greater London
	Public Record Office of Northern Ireland	Belfast	1923		Bull of Pope Honorius III, dated 1219
United States	National Archives and Records Administration	Washington, D.C.	1934
Uruguay	General Archive of the Nation	Montevideo

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Vanuatu	National Archives of Vanuatu
Vatican City	Vatican Apostolic Archive	Cortile del Belvedere	1612
Venezuela	National Archives of Venezuela	Caracas

Country	Archive	Location	Year	Collection size	Notable artifacts	Image	Website
Zambia	National Archives of Zambia	Lusaka		70,000 volumes
Zimbabwe	National Archives of Zimbabwe	Harare	1935

• Archives by country
• List of archives
• List of archivists
• Lists of film archives
• List of national libraries
• National library
• List of oldest institutions in continuous operation

• "Databases and registers - National Archives of Finland". arkisto.fi. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
• penrose-press.com - Directory of Libraries by subject and region, 2016 (in English)

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