World's record-breaking museums: Star Wars to fossilized poo and everything in between

Museums around the world keep the stories of our past alive.

And International Museum Day (18 May) is all about encouraging people through the doors.

Let’s celebrate by taking a tour of some of the world’s record-breaking museums…

Oldest

The Royal Armouries, sitting within the Tower of London (UK) is the world’s oldest museum. The public have been able to go in and look around since 1660, although it was possible to book an appointment to view the collection for up to eight years before that.

The museum houses one of the world’s largest collections of arms and armour.

First permanent videogame museum

The Computerspielemuseum Berlin in Germany was the first ever museum dedicated to videogames. Founded in 1997, it opened as a physical museum before going online in 2000. After more than a decade in the virtual world, it transferred to its current location on Karl-Marx-Allee in 2011.

It’s home to around 37,000 different items, including historical arcade games and consoles.

The Poozeum

The world’s largest collection of coprolites (AKA fossilized faeces) is on display at its very own dedicated museum. The collection’s owner, George Frandsen (USA), loves welcoming visitors to the Poozeum in Williams, Arizona.

People who stop by the museum can even see dinosaur poo and the largest coprolite from a carnivore – a specimen called “Barnum” that measures 67.5 cm (2 ft 2.5 in) long.

Just look at the size of it…

Largest dinosaur museum

Dinosaur fans should head to the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature, situated in Linyi, Pingyi County, Shandong Province, China, where you can see more specimens and ancient fossils than anywhere else.

May the force be with you

The world’s largest collection of Star Wars memorabilia is on display in its very own dedicated museum – Rancho Obi-Wan in Petaluma, California, USA.

Superfan Steve Sansweet (USA) has collected over 500,000 unique items dedicated to the sci-fi franchise.

Largest espionage museum

Ssshhh, it’s top secret, but the world’s largest espionage museum is the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., USA. It houses over 9,000 catalogued items, many of which are on loan from the private collection of espionage historian H. Keith Melton.

Most expensive shipwreck museum

The Mary Rose Museum in the dockyards at Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK, is the most expensive museum dedicated to a single shipwreck. It cost an estimated £39 million (about $50 million) to build and is all about the famous shipwrecked Tudor vessel the Mary Rose, which was raised from the seabed in 1982.

Visitors can walk through parts of the wooden warship and see thousands of artefacts excavated from the wreck site.

Largest art museum

Paris, France’s famous Louvre is the largest art museum in terms of total area, covering 360,000 m² (3,875,000 sq ft) on the Right Bank of the River Seine. 86,000 m² (925,700 sq ft) of that is open to the public, and includes a shopping precinct, restaurants and cafes.

The museum is perhaps best known for being the home of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Museum megafan

Ben Melham (UK) holds the record for most museums visited in 24 hours after stopping by 42 of London’s museums on 25 October 2024. He’s a big lover of museums and hoped to encourage more people to visit by breaking the record.

He is now working on collecting evidence to apply for the most museums visited in one year.

Follow his progress on his Instagram and Bluesky accounts (both @collectingmuseums).