List of most visited museums on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
This article lists the most-visited museums which reported attendance figures for 2021, followed by other
museums
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
with large numbers of annual visitors in 2020 and 2019 but no reported 2021 figures. A museum is defined as a building or institution dedicated to the acquisition, care, research, and exhibition of numerous objects that represent the legacy of humankind and its environment. The primary sources are the Art Newspaper annual report on art museum attendance, and the TEA-AECOM Museum Index, published by the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM consulting firm; as well as national surveys, such as the National Museum Information Survey of the Chinese Government, and the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) in Britain.
Effects of COVID-19 on attendance
Total attendance at the top twenty museums on the list in 2021 rebounded to 13,433,000, an increase of 70 percent over 2020, but only 33 percent of the total attendance in 2019, before the pandemic.TEA-AECOM Museum index for 2021, published 19 October 2022Criteria for inclusion
This list includes art museums, history museums, natural history museums, and science museums, but does not include archaeological sites, historical monuments, or manypalace museum
The Palace Museum () is a huge national museum complex housed in the Forbidden City at the core of Beijing, China. With , the museum inherited the imperial royal palaces from the Ming and Qing dynasties of China and opened to the public in ...
s. This article generally follows that guideline, so the Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
, the Kremlin
The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of the kremlins (Ru ...
, Peterhof Palace
The Peterhof Palace ( rus, Петерго́ф, Petergóf, p=pʲɪtʲɪrˈɡof,) (an emulation of early modern Dutch "Pieterhof", meaning "Pieter's Court"), is a series of palaces and gardens located in Petergof, Saint Petersburg, Russia, commi ...
, and Forbidden City
The Forbidden City () is a palace complex in Dongcheng District, Beijing, China, at the center of the Imperial City of Beijing. It is surrounded by numerous opulent imperial gardens and temples including the Zhongshan Park, the sacrifi ...
are not included, even though these sites include some museum collections. Such palace museums are found in the List of most visited palaces and monuments
This is a list of the most visited national monuments, including palaces, historical monuments and historic sites. It does not include churches, religious shrines and pilgrimage sites . Sources used to compile the list include an annual s ...
.
The list also includes the Mevlana Museum
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلالالدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...
, a mausoleum and religious shrine which is classified by the Turkish government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...
as a museum. It does not include Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...
, which the Turkish government reclassified as a mosque in 2020.
Due to differences in reporting across regions, there is some variation in the time periods for which figures are reported. Unless otherwise noted, figures for North America and continental Europe are calendar year figures, while most figures for Britain and Asia-Pacific are fiscal year figures, from April through March.
List
See also
*List of most-visited art museums
This article lists the most-visited art museums in the world in 2021. The primary source is '' The Art Newspaper'' annual survey of the number of visitors to major art museums in 2021, published 28 March 2022.
Total attendance in the top one hu ...
*List of most-visited museums by region
This is a list of the top twenty most visited museums in each region in 2020, based upon the annual reports of museum attendance from the Art Newspaper Review and the Museum Index of the Themed Entertainment Association. If 2020 figures are not av ...
* List of largest art museums
*List of most visited palaces and monuments
This is a list of the most visited national monuments, including palaces, historical monuments and historic sites. It does not include churches, religious shrines and pilgrimage sites . Sources used to compile the list include an annual s ...
* List of most visited museums in the Netherlands
* List of most visited museums in the United Kingdom
*List of most-visited museums in the United States
This is a list of the most-visited museums in the United States in 2020. It is based upon the annual survey of museum attendance by the Art Newspaper published in March 2021, the TEA-AECOM Museum survey, published in September 2021, and some ...
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Most Visited Museums In The World Lists of art museums and galleries Lists of museumsMuseums
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...