The Ethnographic Museum is the oldest workplace of the Slovak National Museum, which after the Second World War gradually specialized in the comprehensive documentation of the way of life and culture of the people in Slovakia from the earliest times to the present day. It is a specialized national museum focusing on the development of folk culture in Slovakia, ethnic groups and Slovaks abroad.

It materially documents production techniques and technologies, ways of subsistence, food, housing, clothing culture, social relations, customs and customs, folk art culture and artistic expressions in Slovakia among different ethnic communities. To the greatest extent the Ethnographic Museum follows the tradition of the Matica Museum (1870-1873) and the Museum of the National House (1890-1896), whose collections it took into its care. In 1932 it moved to a building built according to the designs of Arch. M.M. Harminc.