The 15 Most-Visited Museums In The World

10. National Palace Museum

Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Visitors per year: 3,860,644

You can find some of the most significant Chinese imperial art and artifacts encompassing 8 thousand years of Chinese art and history in this museum in Taiwan. There are nearly 700,000 exhibits in the collection, and it’s one of the largest exhibits of its kind, coming second only to the collection in the Forbidden City in Beijing, the former imperial residency.

All these priceless artifacts were transported to Taiwan during 1948 and 1949 as a means to protect the valuables of the Chinese royal family during the establishment of Communist rule in China.

9. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

Zaqarbal/ Wikimedia Commons

Location: Madrid, Spain
Visitors per year: 3,898,309

Also known simply as El Reina, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is among the most-visited modern art galleries in the world, revolving around the works of the two titans of 20-century fine art, both of whom happened to be Spanish: Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.

Mazintosh – Fotogranada from Spain/ Wikimedia Commons

Though the collection also offers a variety of temporary and permanent exhibitions by various contemporary Spanish artists, the bulk of the visitors arrive to see the centerpiece of the collection, Picasso’s famous masterpiece “Guernica”.

8. Victoria and Albert Museum

Gary Campbell-Hall/ Flickr

Location: London, UK
Visitors per year: 3,967,566

The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses one of the largest and most complete collections of precious objects in the world, such as costumes, jewelry, medieval objects, drawings, photographs and sculpture, no wonder so many visitors are craving a visit.

The museum spans through 145 galleries and 5,000 years of fine art that arrived in London from different corners of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North America.

7. American Museum of Natural History

Beyond My Ken/ Wikimedia Commons

Location: New York City, USA
Visitors per year: 5,000,000

Welcome to the largest natural history museum in the world. The American Museum of Natural History consists of 28 buildings that house 45 permanent exhibitions, a planetarium, and a library.

Phil Roeder/ Flickr

It’s a must-see for anyone who is interested in archeology and history, as it houses over 33 million specimens (although only a fraction of them are exhibited at a time). These exhibits include fossils, minerals, flora and fauna, meteorites, as well as human remains and early cultural artifacts.

6. British Museum

MrsEllacott/ Wikimedia Commons

Location: London, UK
Visitors per year: 5,829,000

It would be impossible to describe the vast variety of cultural artifacts housed within the premises of this institution. The British Museum is a colossal collection of objects representing various civilizations over thousands of years. Currently, there are 13 million items at the British Museum, but there are another 150 million at the British Library, as well as 70 million at the Natural History Museum.

The Great Court at the British Museum Andrew Stawarz/ Flickr

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding some of the possessions of the museum that were imported from other countries, particularly regarding some of the ancient artifacts and objects imported from the Acropolis in Rome, as well as the Rosetta Stone and many other objects. Both Greece and Egypt, along with other affected countries, claimed the respective objects for restitution.