Recent in‐beam &ggr;‐spectroscopic and &bgr;‐decay experiments as well as inelastic scattering studies reveal the level structure of96Zr, located at the simultaneous closure of the Z=40 and N=56 subshells, and gave an unambiguous proof of its magic character as well as of the presence of shape coexistence. These properties are reviewed in the present paper. Good agreement with preliminary results from particle‐hole RPA calculations is also reported. The recently discovered large octupole vibrational collectivity and the status of the search for two‐phonon octupole and quadrupole‐octupole states are discussed as well.