South of the Yashar Pasha Mosque lies the Kosovo National Museum. The country's most important and largest museum was founded in 1949 for the restoration, preservation, conservation and presentation of the cultural heritage of the then province of Kosovo. It houses more than 50,000 exhibits from the fields of archaeology, numismatics, ethnology, modern history and nature. A further 1,200 artefacts are to be transferred from the Belgrade National Museum in the near future. The most valuable piece, a 6,000-year-old Neolithic terracotta deity found near Pristina in 1956, is already among the exhibits.

This building complex dates back to 1889 and features a typical Austro-Hungarian architectural style. It was originally used for military purposes and served as the headquarters of the Yugoslav Army from 1945 to 1975. The third floor houses the workrooms of the Archaeological Institute. The ethnographic department is located in an outlying complex in the north of the old town. In 2014, the museum reopened after extensive restoration work, and information boards in English are available. (Admission is currently free, open Mon-Sat, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.).