List of most-visited museums
This article lists the forty-five most-visited museums in 2020, followed by other museums with more than two million annual visitors in 2019, but no reported 2020 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.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museums listed were closed during the year for long periods of time. For example, the Louvre, the top museum on the list, was closed for 150 days in 2020, and Louvre attendance for 2020 dropped by 72 percent from 2019. Attendance at the top one hundred art museums dropped by 77 percent in 2020.[8] Natural history and science museums had a comparable drop in attendance as a result of the COVID-19 virus, which caused long closures and a global drop in tourism. For example, attendance at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum fell by 72 percent in 2020; attendance at the Natural History Museum in London fell by 77 percent, and attendance at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington fell by 86.4 percent in 2020.[9]
Attendance at the top twenty museums of all categories in 2020 decreased by 78 percent across all regions.[10] in Europe, tourism was largely stopped, and museums were closed for an average of 112 extra days in 2020 due to the virus. Attendance at the top twenty museums in North America, where many museums were forced to close for two thirds of the year, fell by 81 percent in 2020, In the Asia-Pacific region, many museums were less dependent upon foreign visitors, and the museums generally closed for shorter periods, an average of 30 days. Still, in the Asia-Pacific region, attendance dropped by 72.4 percent from 2019.[10]
Criteria for inclusion[]
Major sources for this list are:
- Art Newspaper's annual exhibition and museum visitor figures, which includes only art museums
- The TEA/AECOM Museum Index, which only includes museums in East Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States.
- Museum statistics compiled by national agencies in countries not comprehensively covered by the first two sources, such as China's National Cultural Heritage Administration. and Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
These lists includes art museums, history museums, natural history museums, and science museums, but does not include archaeological sites, historical monuments, or many palace museums.[a] This article generally follows that guideline, so the Palace of Versailles, Peterhof Palace, and Forbidden City 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.
The list also includes the Mevlana Museum, a mausoleum and religious shrine which is classified by the Turkish government as a museum. It does not include Hagia Sophia, which the Turkish government stopped classifying as a museum in 2020.
Methodology[]
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.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/National_Museum_of_China_front_facade_2014.jpg/220px-National_Museum_of_China_front_facade_2014.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Spb_06-2012_Palace_Embankment_various_14.jpg/220px-Spb_06-2012_Palace_Embankment_various_14.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Tate_Modern_viewed_from_Thames_Pleasure_Boat_-_geograph.org.uk_-_307445.jpg/220px-Tate_Modern_viewed_from_Thames_Pleasure_Boat_-_geograph.org.uk_-_307445.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/National_Museum_of_Korea.jpg/220px-National_Museum_of_Korea.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Madrid-1758045.jpg/220px-Madrid-1758045.jpg)
List[]
See also[]
- List of most-visited art museums
- List of most-visited museums by region
- List of largest art museums
- List of most visited palaces and monuments
- 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
Notes[]
- ^ Some well-attended palace museums are not included in either the Art Newspaper or TEA/AECOM lists, although they are sometimes classified as museums by their respective national cultural agencies. These include Beijing's Forbidden City (which, with more than 19 million visitors in 2019, was ranked as the most-visited museum by the China Daily News Agency[11]); the Palace of Versailles (8,132,518 visitors in 2018);[12] Peterhof Palace (5,714,700 visitors in 2018), which is formally classified either as a "Дворцо́во-па́рковый анса́мбль, or Palace-Park Ensemble" or as a "Museum-Park Ensemble" by the Russian Ministry of Culture;[13] the Museum of King John III's Palace at Wilanów (3,151,385 visitors in 2018);[12] and Istanbul's Topkapı Palace (2,364,946 visitors in 2019).[14]
- ^ Includes visitors at the main Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Met Cloisters, but not the visitors recorded at the Met Breuer.
- ^ Includes only the visitors recorded at the main museum in Taipei, and not visitors recorded at the Southern Branch.
References[]
- ^ "Definition of MUSEUM". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "Museum Definition - ICOM". icom.museum. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "MUSEUM | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary". dictionary.cambridge.org. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "museum | Definition of museum in English by Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries | English. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "Museum definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "museum | Definition, History, Types, & Operation". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "museum (noun) American English definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary". www.macmillandictionary.com. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ The Art Newspaper, March 30, 2021
- ^ https://aecom.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/reports/AECOM-Theme-Index-2020.pdf[bare URL PDF]
- ^ a b Theme Index for year 2020, published September 2021
- ^ "Beijing's Forbidden City ranks most visited museum in the world". China Daily. 5 January 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
- ^ a b "5 most visited museums". European Group on Museum Statistics. 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ "Музеи. Статистическая информация". Ministry of Culture of Russia. 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ a b "Top 10: Turkey's most-visited museums in 2019". Yeni Şafak. 12 February 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
- ^ Tea-AECOM Museum Index, "Top 20 Museums Worldwide", published September 2021
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Tea-AECOM Museum Index, "Top 20 Museums Worldwide", published September 2021
- ^ a b c The Art Newspaper, March 30, 2021
- ^ a b TEA-AECOM Musedum Index, published September 2021
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
tea-aecom-2020
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Tea-AECOM Museum Index,published September 2021
- ^ a b c TEA-AECOM Museum Index published September 2021
- ^ The Art Newspaper, Most visited Art Museums 2020
- ^ TEA-AECOM Museum Index, published Sept. 2021
- ^ The Art Newspaper,March 30, 2021
- ^ a b "Estadística de Visitantes" (in Spanish). INAH. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ^ TEA-AECOM survey, Sept, 2021
- ^ a b c TEA-AECOM Museum index, published September 2021
- ^ TEA AECOM Museum Index published September 2021
- ^ TEA-AECOM Survey published September 2021
- ^ a b c TEA-AECOM Museum Index, published September 2021
- ^ TEA-AECOM Museum Index, September 2021
- ^ TEA-AECOM Museum Index for 2020, published September 2021
- ^ The Art Newspaper, 30 March 2021
- ^ Statista, October 9, 2021
- ^ Association of Leading Visitor Attractions in UK, (2020)
- ^ {Association of Leading Visitor Attractions |accessdate=October 8, 2021}}
- ^ a b "Top 100 Art museum attendance". The Art Newspaper. No. 322. April 2020. p. 15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "2019年度全国博物馆名录" (PDF) (in Chinese). National Cultural Heritage Administration. 13 May 2020.
- ^ TEA-AECOM Museum Index for 2019
- Lists of art museums and galleries
- Lists of museums
- Tourism-related lists of superlatives