The Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland may inscribe a Polish museum into the National Register of Museums ( pl, Państwowy Rejestr Muzeów) in order to confirm the high level of its cultural activity and the importance of its collection. Only those museums that meet the required criteria – including importance of the museum's collection, a team of well qualified employees, an adequate building, and a permanent source of financing – may be entered into the register. Such museums are known as registered museums (). A registered museum that no longer meets the criteria may be removed from the register. Registered museums enjoy certain privileges that other museums in Poland do not. A registered museum has the

right of pre-emption A pre-emption right, right of pre-emption, or first option to buy is a contractual right to acquire certain property newly coming into existence before it can be offered to any other person or entity. It comes from the Latin verb ''emo, emere, emi, ...

for artefacts offered for sale by antique traders and at auctions. Directors of registered museums elect triennially from among themselves eleven out of 21 members of the Museums Council (), which advises the Minister of Culture and National Heritage on matters related to museums. Among the 130 registered museums (), the vast majority are state-owned. Sixteen of these are deemed to be of national importance and hence supervised directly by ministries of the national government – the

Ministry of National Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

in the case of the

Polish Army Museum Museum of the Polish Army ( pl, Muzeum Wojska Polskiego) is a museum in Warsaw documenting the military history of Poland. Established in 1920 under the Second Polish Republic, it occupies a wing of the building of the Polish National Museum as w ...

and the

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego) is a governmental administration office concerned with various aspects of Polish culture. It was formed on 31 October 20 ...

for all the remaining ones. The rest of the state-owned museums are either under the supervision of local authorities of various levels (

voivodeships A voivodeship is the area administered by a voivode (Governor) in several countries of central and eastern Europe. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times and the area of extent of voivodeship resembles that of a duchy in western medieval ...

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...

) or are supervised jointly by a government ministry and local authorities. Additionally, one registered museum belongs to a state-owned university (the Jagiellonian University Museum) and one is privately owned (the Private Automotive and Technological Museum in

Otrębusy Otrębusy is a village in Poland, in Masovian Voivodship, to the west of Warsaw in the Gmina Brwinów. History The first mention of Otrębusy come from ''Księgi Błońskie Ziemskie'' from 1525 and 1534. Latin spelling was used then: Otram ...

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, the capital and largest city of Poland, has the highest concentration of registered museums, numbering sixteen. It is followed by

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, with nine registered museums; Gdańsk, which is home to four registered museums; and further by Lublin,

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

and Opole, with three each.

Registered museums

Formerly registered museums

The following museums have been removed from the register.

References

Sources

* * * {{Europe topic, List of museums in Registered *