Most visited museum (current)

The most recent Global Attractions Attendance Report, compiled by TEA/AECOM and published in October 2025, listed the Palace Museum in Beijing, China, as the most visited museum in the world, with 17,000,000 visitors in 2024.

Part of the Chinese capital's Forbidden City complex, the Palace Museum houses some 1.8 million artefacts from the country's imperial period, with extensive collections of ceramics, paintings, bronze sculptures and weapons, jade items, calligraphy, robes and other textiles, to name just a few.

Chinese institutions occupied the top three spots in the 2025 Global Attractions Attendance Report, with Chengdu Wuhou Shrine Museum (14.57 million) and Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum (11.61 million) claiming second and third place, respectively.

Outside of China, the most visited museum of the year was the Louvre in Paris, France, which welcomed 8,737,000 people through its doors in 2024.