Archaeological Museum of Chania is housed in the former Venetian Cathedral of St. Francis in the heart of old town street Haledon. The Museum was founded in 1962. The artifacts exhibited in the Museum give visitors a good insight into the development history of Western Crete from the Neolithic period to Roman times.

When the building was constructed, it is not known, although there are written records of the great earthquake of 1595, in which is mentioned the Church of St. Francis. Today the Museum building is an important historical monument of the city. In the Ottoman period the Church was rebuilt into a mosque and named in honor of Yusuf Pasha, the conqueror of Chania. At the turn of 19-20 centuries, the building housed a cinema "Ideon". After the Second World War until 1962 (when the building was transferred to the Archaeological Museum has a warehouse of military equipment. The archaeological collection of Chania, was formerly housed in various public institutions (Administration, grammar School for boys, the mosque Hassan).

The Museum contains an impressive collection of Minoan and Roman artifacts collected from archaeological site of the city of Chania and the whole region. The Museum exhibition is presented in chronological order and includes ceramics, sculptures, figurines, weapons, gold jewelry, stamps, coins, sarcophagi and other funerary artifacts, mosaics, clay tablets with inscriptions and much more.

Among the huge variety of Museum exhibitions is to provide a Roman mosaic floor with images of Dionysus and Ariadne (2-3 century BC). An important place in the Museum's collection are also clay tablets with linear a inscriptions (1450 – 1300 BCE). Interesting painted sarcophagus (1400-1200 BCE) Minoan Acropolis Armeni and bust of the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

In 2000, Constantine and Marik Mitsotakis donated to the Archaeological Museum of Chania is a huge private collection of his family, which is a third of the entire Museum was rare and rich historical relics.

Visiting the Archaeological Museum of Chania, you can plunge into the atmosphere of the ancient city, to see how varied the lifestyle and traditions of the inhabitants of Western Crete, as they improved their knowledge and skill.