The Canadian Museum of History (French: Musée canadien de l’histoire) is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of Canada, as well as support related research. The museum is based in a 75,000-square-metre-building (810,000 sq ft) designed by Douglas Cardinal.

The museum originated from one established by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1856, which later expanded to include an anthropology division in 1910. In 1927, the institution was renamed the National Museum of Canada. The national museum was later split into several separate institutions in 1968, with the anthropology and human history departments forming the National Museum of Man. The museum relocated to its present location in Gatineau in 1989 and adopted the name Canadian Museum of Civilization (French: Musée canadien des civilisations) the following year. In 2013, the museum adopted its current name, the Canadian Museum of History, and modified its mandate to emphasize Canadian identity and history.

The museum's collection contains over three million artifacts and documents, with some on display in the museum's permanent exhibitions. The museum also hosts and organizes a number of temporary, travelling, and online exhibitions, like the Virtual Museum of New France.

The Canadian Museum of History originates from the collecting efforts of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), an organization established in 1842 in Montreal. In 1856 the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada passed an act that enabled the GSC to establish a museum to exhibit items found from its geological and archaeological field trips; with the museum initially established in Montreal on Great St. James Street (now Saint Jacques Street). The museum held its first ethnological exhibit from 1862 to 1863, showcasing stone implements and fragments of pottery by First Nations. In 1877, the museum mandate was formally expanded to include the study of modern fauna and flora, in addition to human history, languages, and traditions.

In 1881, the museum relocated from Montreal to downtown Ottawa to what is now referred to as Former Geological Survey of Canada Building; although space in the new facility soon proved to be inadequate, with the Royal Society of Canada petitioning the federal government to build a new building for the museum by 1896. Preliminary plans for a new building were drawn up by 1899, although work on the building did not begin until 1906. In the following year, management of the museum was handed over from the GSC to the Department of Mines, with the mandate formally expanded to include anthropological studies. The new museum building, the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, was also completed in 1910, although it was not opened to the public until 1911.

Under the Department of Mines, the museum formally established an anthropology division under the direction of Edward Sapir in 1910. Another anthropologist, Marius Barbeau, was also hired by the museum in the following year to assist Sapir. The anthropology division was charged with the preservation of the cultural heritage of people in Canada and assembling objects related to these cultures. Under Sapir's direction, the institution's research initially focused on Aboriginal communities across Canada they believed were imperilled by rapid acculturation. The museum's first anthropological exhibits were organized by Sapir and his protege, Franz Boas. Since this period, the museum had become a centre for Canadian anthropology, having attracted notable anthropologists including Diamond Jenness after the Second World War.

In 1927, the museum division of the Department of Mines was renamed the National Museum of Canada. Management of the National Museum is transferred from the Department of Mines to the Department of Resources and Development in 1950. In 1965, the museum was split into two branches, one focused on natural history and another on human history. The mandate of the museum further expanded in the following decades, with the museum assuming the management of the Canadian War Museum in 1958, and its human history branch establishing a history division in 1964.

On 1 April 1968, the branches of the National Museum of Canada were formally split into separate museums. The Canadian Museum of History originated from the human history branch of the museum, initially incorporated as the National Museum of Man. The natural history branch of the former National Museum of Canada became the National Museum of Natural Sciences (later renamed the Canadian Museum of Nature), while the science and technology branch became the National Museum of Science and Technology (later renamed the Canada Science and Technology Museum). The National Museums of Canada Corporation was formed by the federal government in order to manage these national museums, in addition to the National Gallery of Canada. Although the institutions were split, the National Museum of Man and the National Museum of Natural History continued to share the Victoria Memorial building; with the National Museum of Man occupying the western half of the building.