The Basque Museum of Bilbao was born with the original name of Basque Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum of Biscay.

It opened in 1921, occupying the ground floor of the baroque cloister of the ancient Colegio de San Andrés. In a short time the museum occupied the annexed buildings and increased its collections, also including pieces of archeology from Biscay and the ethno-history of the Basque Country.

The museum's collection was born between 1917 and 1921 with the main aim of finally putting the museum into operation.

This period included pieces mainly of an architectural and sculptural nature such as shields, architraves, tympanums, capitals, carvings, altarpieces, cibori, laudas, sarcophagi, fishing tools, agricultural tools, pastoral tools, tools for shoemakers, textile tools, weapons, play and sports equipment, argizaiolak and shrouds.

To date, the permanent collections inside the museum are distributed over several floors: starting from the ground floor, here are the rooms of burial debts, heraldry and a space reserved for temporary exhibitions and a shop. At the entrance is a sculpture by Nestor Basterretxea, on loan from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.

At the center of the cloister was placed the Mikeldi sculpture by Durango. Salenndo on the first floor is a reproduction of the cross of Kurutziaga and the exhibitions of weapons, the Basques and the sea, the pastoral culture and the domestic arts of ceramics and fabrics (especially linen and wool). On the second floor are the rooms of prehistory and archeology of Biscay. On the third and penultimate floor there are the rooms of the Consulate of Bilbao, with furniture and other memorabilia including wooden benches with red velvet upholstery.

A colossal scale model of the province is also exhibited in this plan.