This chapter analyses national museums as significant national symbols and as nation-building devices. The political museum map correlates years of pivotal nation-building with years of national museum inauguration. With pivotal nation-building approximate dates of independence, state formation, formation of union, republics or kingdoms are intended. All national symbols are introduced at pivotal times in the nation's history, such as independence, the break-up of empires, the loss of empire, the forming of republics, kingdoms or unions. National museums and other national symbols constitute nation-building tools for elites engaged in this process, as they, together with sundry national symbols, raise boundaries against others. National museums authenticate boundaries against others, in particular by identifying the origins of groups as specifically national and by providing corresponding imaginations of nations as communities. With the endeavours of national museums in mind, as institutions, buildings, representations, displays and exhibitions, their activities are by nature boundary-making enterprises.