This article lists the most-visited museums which reported attendance figures for 2021, followed by other museums 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.[1] 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.[2]

Criteria for inclusion

This list includes art museums, history museums, natural history museums, and science museums, but does not include archaeological sites, historical monuments, or many palace museums.[lower-alpha 1] This article generally follows that guideline, so the Palace of Versailles, the Kremlin, 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 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

Name	Country flag, city	Visitors per year	Year reported
Louvre	Paris	2,825,000	2021[7]
National Museum of China	Beijing	2,378,000	2021[8]
Shanghai Science and Technology Museum	Shanghai	2,368,000	2021 [9]
China Science and Technology Museum	Beijing	2,360,000	2021[10]
Russian Museum	Saint Petersburg	2,260,231	2021[11]
Multimedia Art Museum	Moscow	2,242,405	2021[12]
Shanghai Natural History Museum	Shanghai	2,166,000	2021[13]
Nanjing Museum	Nanjing	2,034,000	2021[14]
Metropolitan Museum of Art	New York City	1,958,000	2021[15]
Galleria degli Uffizi	Florence	1,721,637	2021[16]
National Gallery of Art	Washington, D.C.	1,704,606	2021[17]
State Hermitage Museum	Saint Petersburg	1,649,443	2021[18]
Museo Reina Sofía	Madrid	1,643,000	2021[19]
Vatican Museums	Vatican City	1,612,530	2021[20]
Tianjin Natural History Museum	Tianjin	1,600,000	2021 [21]
Tretyakov Gallery	Moscow	1,580,819	2021[22]
Natural History Museum	London	1,571,413	2021[23]
National Museum of Natural Science	Taichung	1,566,000	2021[24]
Centre Pompidou	Paris	1,501,040	2021[25]
British Museum	London	1,327,120	2021[26]
National Taiwan Science Education Center	Taipei	1,158,000	2021[27]
Museo del Prado	Madrid	1,126,875	2021[29]
Musée d'Orsay	Paris	1,044,365	2021[30]
National Museum of Natural History	Washington, D.C.	982,000	2021[31]
National Air and Space Museum	Washington, D.C.	972,235	2021[32]
Denver Museum of Nature and Science	Denver	958,830	2021[33]
London Science Museum	London	955,573	2021[34]
Zhejiang Museum	Hangzhou	929,000	2021[35]
Shanghai Museum	Shanghai	880,457	2021[36]
Victoria and Albert Museum	London	857,742	2021[37]
National Gallery	London	708,924	2021[38]
Royal Museums Greenwich	London	686,375	2021[39]
National Museum of Scotland	Edinburgh	660,741	2021[40]
Rijksmuseum	Amsterdam	625,000	2021[41]
National Museum of Anthropology	Mexico City	477,147	2021[42]
National Palace Museum[lower-alpha 2]	Taipei	416,436	2021[43]
National Museum of African-American History and Culture	Washington, D.C.	392,960	2021[44]
Van Gogh Museum	Amsterdam	366,359	2021[45]
National Museum of History	Mexico City	331,985	2021[42]
Hunan Museum	Changsha	460,000	2021[46]
National Museum of Nature and Science	Tokyo	580,000	2020[47]
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum	Tokyo	510,000	2020[48]
Shaanxi History Museum	Xi'an	1,000,000	2020[49]
Tokyo National Museum	Tokyo	725,000	2020[48]
Hubei Provincial Museum	Wuhan	446,000	2020[50]
Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie	Paris	642,416	2020[51]
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil	Rio de Janeiro	790,357	2020[52]
National Museum of Korea	Seoul	774,000	2020[53]
National Archeological Museum of Naples	Naples	670,594	2019[53]
California Science Center	Los Angeles	271,000	2020[53]
NGV International	Melbourne	2,432,883	2019[54]
Chongqing Museum of Natural History	Chongqing	2,624,700	2019[55]
Shenzhen Museum	Shenzhen	3,826,000	2019[55]
Guangdong Museum of Revolutionary History	Guangzhou	4,257,100	2019[55]
Mevlana Museum	Konya	3,464,155	2019[6]
Xi'an Museum	Xi'an	3,420,000	2019[56]
Inner Mongolia Museum	Hohhot	2,361,000	2019[55]
Three Gorges Museum	Chongqing	2,301,900	2019[55]
National Folk Museum of Korea	Seoul	2,286,276	2019[54]
Liaoning Provincial Museum	Shenyang	2,280,000	2019[55]
Chengdu Museum	Chengdu	2,259,000	2019[55]
Guangdong Museum	Guangzhou	2,234,800	2019[55]
Wenzhou Museum	Wenzhou	2,229,900	2019[55]
Suzhou Museum	Suzhou	2,030,000	2019[55]
Jakarta History Museum	Jakarta	741,487	2019[57]

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

References