Beijing’s National Museum Nearly Ousts the Louvre as the World’s Most-Attended Art Institution

Watch your back, Louvre. Beijing’s National Museum of China drew a record 8,063,000 visitors last year, rapidly ascending the list of the world’s most attended museums. In fact, it leapfrogged over the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Vatican Museums in Vatican City, and the British Museum in London, according to the Art Newspaper‘s annual survey of museum attendance.

The massive institution in Tiananmen Square was second only to the Louvre in Paris, which—just barely—remained the most popular museum in the world, with 8.1 million visitors in 2017. The French museum is continuing to recover from a dip in visitors caused by the terror attacks in Paris in 2015.

Other takeaways from the TAN survey, which was published online today, are below. Read more