China now owns the global museum league table. The Themed Entertainment Association's annual attendance index for 2025 puts Beijing's Palace Museum – the vast complex inside the Forbidden City – firmly at number one, with roughly 19 million visitors walking through in a single year. In total, Chinese institutions take 12 of the 20 spots, a dominance the report credits to a huge domestic audience and a policy reality most travellers would envy: 91% of China's 7,188 registered museums are free to enter.
Beijing alone places five entries on the list. The Summer Palace comes second on 17.4 million visitors, the National Museum of China and Prince Kung's Mansion Museum also feature, and the China Science and Technology Museum rounds out the capital's haul at number 20. Elsewhere in the country, the terracotta warriors draw nearly 11 million people to the Emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi'an, while the Opium War Museum in Dongguan and the striking Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan both clear six million.
Europe holds five places in the global top 20, led by the Louvre in Paris at number four with just over nine million visitors – fitting for a country that remains the most visited on Earth. The Palace of Versailles follows in fifth on 8.4 million. London's Natural History Museum sits seventh at 7.1 million, helped by its popular Our Story with David Attenborough experience, ahead of the Vatican Museums on 6.9 million. The British Museum completes the European set in 13th with 6.44 million visitors.
Further down the European-only ranking, the picture is a mix of royals and classics: Saint Petersburg's State Russian Museum, Peterhof and the Hermitage, Istanbul's Topkapı Palace, London's Tate Modern and National Gallery, Pompeii, Vienna's Schönbrunn, the Prado, Wawel Castle in Kraków and Florence's Uffizi all make the top 20. The report notes attendance across continental Europe has stayed high and steady as major institutions finished their post-pandemic recovery, while UK venues got a boost from new wings and exhibitions – including the National Gallery's revamped Sainsbury Wing.
For travellers, the takeaway is practical as much as it is cultural. The Louvre, Versailles, the Vatican and the British Museum all regularly sell out or queue for hours in peak season, so booking timed entry well ahead is now less a tip than a requirement. In China, the sheer scale of free or cheap admission makes museum-hopping one of the best-value ways to plan a trip – Beijing alone could fill a week, and pairing it with Xi'an's warriors covers the country's two headline acts.
