The Ghent City Museum (in Dutch "Stadsmuseum Gent", "STAM" in short) exposes the city history and opened its doors on 9 October 2010.
With respect to the collection that is shown, the history of this museum goes back to 1833, the year in which the Oudheidkundig Museum van de Bijloke in Ghent was founded. In 1928 the museum was located in the Bijloke abbey - this led to the name Bijlokemuseum.
With the Bijloke collection as base and the Bijloke abbey and Bijloke monastery as buildings, the STAM functions as a modern-day heritage forum. Parts from other collections were added to the Bijloke collection.
The main circuit of the Ghent City Museum serves as a museal and multimedial introduction to a visit to the city of Ghent. The past of the town is illustrated, but also today's life and the future are discussed. The temporary STAM collections describe the phenomenon of "urbanity" by means of contemporary issues.
Chronologically structured rooms invite the visitors to explore various thematics. There is also a section dedicated to the Ghent Altarpiece.
The Ghent City Museum was the winner of the 2012 Flemish Museum Prize.
Eyecatching parts of the museum are the sky picture of Ghent (300 m² large) on which the visitors can walk around, and software with which Ghent can be viewed in detail and over the course of four centuries.