Skip to content
List your business

Best Attractions in Kigali (2026)

Kigali's most important sights are tied to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and most visitors start at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi, the final resting place of more than 250,000 victims. Entry is free, it opens daily from 9am to 5pm, and you should allow at least an hour and a half. The Campaign Against Genocide Museum, in the parliament grounds, tells how RPA forces stationed there in 1994 fought to stop the killing, while the Rwanda Art Museum in the former presidential palace at Kanombe shows contemporary art beside wreckage of the presidential jet shot down on 6 April 1994. Many visitors space these visits out rather than seeing them all on one day.

The Kandt House Museum, in the city's oldest building, covers pre-colonial Rwanda and the German colonial period. The national museums share the same hours, open later on Umuganda Saturdays and close on 7 April, Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and tickets are paid through Irembo. For a lighter afternoon, visit Inema Arts Center or Niyo Arts Center for contemporary Rwandan art, walk or cycle the paths of Nyandungu Eco-Park, and see the Kigali Convention Centre's lit dome after dark.

8 places · Updated November 12, 2026

Our top 3 attractions in Kigali

  1. Kigali Genocide Memorial Genocide memorial and museum, GisoziThe national memorial at Gisozi where more than 250,000 victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi are buried, with permanent exhibitions and memorial gardens.
  2. Campaign Against Genocide Museum History museum, GishushuA museum in Rwanda's parliament building telling how RPA forces stationed there in 1994 fought to stop the genocide, with outdoor bunkers and monuments.
  3. Kandt House Museum History museum, NyarugengeKigali's oldest surviving building, the 1908 house of German administrator Richard Kandt, now a museum on pre-colonial Rwanda, the colonial era and the city's origins.

Attraction

8. Niyo Arts Center

Art gallery and collectiveKigali

A gallery and artists' collective opened in 2014 for East African makers, with studios, murals and a social mission supporting vulnerable groups in Kigali.

View details — Niyo Arts Center