Museums around the world – what does our map with 106,411 objects reveal?

In a museum, we can encounter a civilization that disappeared thousands of years ago, see the first engines that revolutionized transportation, or discover the history of a small village through the objects of its inhabitants. Together, these places hold a huge part of humanity’s memory. When we plot them on a world map, new questions arise:

• Where are they most numerous?
• Which themes predominate?
• Which museums are most popular?
• What remains beyond the visible?

The interactive Museums of the World map at The Museum of Maps collects 106,411 geographic features from 221 state and territory codes. It allows us to explore both famous museum complexes and local collections, historic houses, and specialized exhibits that we easily miss when planning a trip.

Why do museums have such great cultural and educational importance?

Museums preserve original evidence of human life and nature such as archaeological finds, works of art, documents, scientific instruments, minerals and biological specimens. The study and preservation of these collections allows knowledge to be verified, supplemented and transmitted between generations.

Their educational role begins with direct encounter with the object. A tool shows how people worked, a map reveals how they imagined the world, and a fossil turns geologic time into something we can observe. A museum visit can develop curiosity, comparative skills, critical thinking, especially when visitors are given the opportunity to ask questions and explore for themselves.

This public function is enshrined in the definition adopted in 2022 by the International Council of Museums, ICOM. It focuses on the study, collection, conservation and presentation of tangible and intangible heritage, as well as accessibility, community participation and knowledge sharing. ¹

Which international organizations work for museums?

One of the main organizations is ICOM, founded in 1946. It is an international non-governmental organization of museums and museum professionals that develops professional standards, ethical codes, and cooperation between institutions. ²

Within the UN system, UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, plays an important role. In 2015, it adopted a special recommendation on the conservation and promotion of museums and collections, their diversity and their role in society. The document considers preservation, scholarship, communication and education as the core functions of museums. ³

Added to this international network is ICCROM, the Intergovernmental Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property. Its work includes training, research and technical assistance for the conservation of movable and immovable heritage. ⁴

Where was the first known museum created?

One of the earliest known examples of the deliberate collection and display of antiquities is the collection associated with Enigaldi-Nana, daughter of the Babylonian king Nabonidus. It was found in the ancient city of Ur, in what is now Iraq, in the 6th century BC, usually dated to around 530 BC. ^{5, 6}

During excavations in the 1920s, archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered objects from significantly older and different historical periods on the same floor. Among the finds was a clay cylinder with a description of an ancient object. Woolley interpreted the combination of selected antiquities and explanatory inscription as evidence of an organized collection, a kind of precursor to the museum. ⁵

This is an archaeological interpretation that allows us to speak of one of the earliest known museum examples. We do not have complete information about the access, management, and presentation of the collection to fully equate it with a modern museum institution.

What are some of the oldest museums we can visit today?

In Europe, key early examples include the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The collection began with a donation of ancient bronze sculptures by Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, and was officially opened to the public in 1734. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford opened in 1683 and was the world’s first university museum. The difference between founding a collection and opening it to visitors explains why more than one institution can be considered the “oldest museum”. ^{7, 8}

In India, the Indian Museum in Kolkata was founded in 1814 under the Asiatic Society of Bengal. It is an important starting point for the development of modern museum work in the country, combining collections related to human history and the natural sciences. ⁹

In China, the Nantong Museum, founded in 1905 by Zhang Jiang, is particularly important as the first museum founded by Chinese people. Its collections include cultural treasures and natural history specimens. This designation is significant because the history of museum collections in China also includes earlier initiatives by foreign organizations. ¹⁰

In Japan, the National Museum in Tokyo traces its origins to the Yushima Seido Exhibition in March 1872. The early development of the institution was associated with the study and documentation of the country’s cultural treasures, including objects from temples and shrines. ¹¹

In the United States, the Charleston, South Carolina, Museum was founded in 1773, before the Declaration of Independence. It is widely considered the first museum in the present-day United States. Today, its work focuses on the natural and cultural history of the region. ¹²

In South America, among the early major institutions was the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, founded in 1818 as the Royal Museum and considered the oldest scientific institution in Brazil. The National Museum of Colombia in Bogotá was founded on July 28, 1823, and is the oldest museum in the country. These examples show how closely the development of museums was linked to scientific research and the building of national institutions. ^{13, 14}

How many objects are there on our map?

The count of entries in the map file as of October 6, 2026, yields 106,411 features. These are distributed among 221 state and territory codes, which include both independent states and dependent territories.

The base is OpenStreetMap, enriched with information from Wikidata. Therefore, the numbers indicate the geographic records included in this version. These may include individual museum buildings, branches, historic houses, and other places designated as museums. An institution may have more than one site, and the completeness of mapping varies from country to country.

This is also important when compared to UNESCO’s estimate of around 104,000 museums worldwide in 2021. The different years, definitions and units of count mean that the two sets cannot be used to measure growth or to demonstrate complete global coverage. ¹⁵

Which country has the most museums on the map?

The United States leads with 14,357 sites, approximately 13.5% of all records, followed by Germany and Japan.

The top five countries collect 39.6% of all records, and the top ten cover 57.6%. Thus, more than half of the sites on the map are located in just ten countries. This distribution reflects both the museum infrastructure and the availability of data in the open sources used.

In which countries are only between one and five sites marked?

There are also independent countries in the set with very few records. The table presents examples without including dependent territories.

For example, one record for Liberia means that one geographic feature with that country code is included in the file. We may just not have the information needed to add the object on the map. A national register or other separate source is needed to establish the actual number of museum institutions across the world. The small number of records is also an invitation to seek more information about places that are still poorly represented in global open data.

What is the most visited museum in the world?

In the broad TEA Global Experience Index 2024 ranking, which includes palace and archaeological museum complexes, the Palace Museum in Beijing, part of the Forbidden City, ranked first with 17 million visits. It was followed by the Wuhou Temple Museum in Chengdu with 14.57 million and the Museum of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Xi’an with 11.61 million. The Louvre was fourth with 8.737 million visits. ^{16, 17}

The Louvre remains the top art museum in The Art Newspaper’s ranking. In the 2025 edition, it had 9,046,000 visits. So the answer depends on the year and which types of institutions are included in the comparison. The figures given measure visits, which may include repeat visits by the same person. ^{18, 19}

Which museums lead in terms of attendance on different continents?

For comparison, we use 2024 data from TEA and The Art Newspaper. The table shows the leading institutions in the scope of these studies. They do not represent a complete census of all museums by continent.

The figure for the National Gallery of Victoria combines two venues. If we compare individual museums, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney has about 2.37 million visits, more than the standalone NGV International with about 2.29 million. This is another example of how the unit of comparison changes the result. The CCBB in Rio is also a cultural complex with exhibitions and other programs, which should be considered when comparing it to a museum with a permanent exhibition. ^{16, 20, 21}

For Africa, the lack of a confirmed leader in this table shows the limitations of the comparison. The Great Egyptian Museum near Giza, officially opened in November 2025, is already a major new player in global museum tourism, but its post-opening figures are not comparable to the full calendar year 2024. ²²

Which city has the most museum entries on the map?

Among the entries with a completed city field, Berlin leads with 182 sites. Budapest, Buenos Aires, Vienna and London follow.

In the census, only differences in uppercase and lowercase letters and unnecessary spaces were combined. Different language names, suburbs and agglomerations were not combined.

The city field is filled in for 38,174 features, or 35.9% of the set. The rest have coordinates, but no text value for the city. Therefore, this is a ranking of the available city fields. For a reliable comparison of all cities, spatial reference of each point to uniformly defined city boundaries is necessary.

Which topics are best represented?

Among the sites with a specific thematic category, history and heritage records have the most: 13,028. This is followed by art and design with 4,450 sites and thematic and specialized museums with 3,588.

A further 74,839 objects, or 70.3% of the set, fall into the general category without a specific thematic classification. Therefore, these numbers describe the way the entries in the map are classified. They do not determine the actual proportion of all types of museums worldwide.

What other interesting facts does the map reveal?

The geographical distribution shows a strong predominance of the Northern Hemisphere: 98,505 sites, or about 92.6% of all records, are located there. The Southern Hemisphere has 7,906. The difference reflects a combination of population, historical development of museum networks, and uneven coverage of open data. The map itself does not allow us to measure the influence of these factors separately.

An image is available for 23,514 objects, a Wikipedia link is available for 23,979, and a web address field is available for 49,495. These additions make the points a starting point for further research. The web addresses are recorded in the sources and not all have been verified as being current at the time of analysis.

This is where the power of the map lies: we can go from the world’s distribution to a specific collection, from general statistics to the history of a place. Choose a country, look for a transport museum or an archaeological exhibition, and discover the next stop on our own journey through human knowledge.

Sources and methodology

The map statistics are calculated from 106,411 records in our database, that was generated using multiple international geospatial data sources 2026. All records have different combinations of type and identifiers. This does not exclude different records for the same institution or imperfections in the source data.

1. ICOM, Museum Definition, 2022: https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/
2. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, ICOM: https://whc.unesco.org/en/glossary/38
3. UNESCO, Recommendation concerning Museums and Collections, 2015: https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/recommendation-concerning-protection-and-promotion-museums-and-collections-their-diversity-and-their
4. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, ICCROM and international organizations: https://whc.unesco.org/en/glossary/
5. Gold Hill Museum, the archaeological evidence for the collection at Ur: https://goldhillmuseum.org.uk/murder-and-theft-in-mesopotamia-continued-from-worlds-oldest-museum/
6. Summary of Ennigaldi-Nanna and bibliographic sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennigaldi-Nanna%27s_museum
7. Musei Capitolini, history of the collection and public opening: https://www.museicapitolini.org/it/node/85654
8. Ashmolean, history: https://ashmolean.org/history-ashmolean
9. Indian Museum, history: https://indianmuseumkolkata.org/about/
10. Ministry of Culture of China, the first museum founded by Chinese: https://www.mct.gov.cn/whzx/ldhd/201111/t20111124_695727.htm ; Nantong Municipality: https://en.nantong.gov.cn/2023-03/07/c_864259.htm ; Earlier missionary museums: https://english.visitbeijing.com.cn/article/47ONoPb9MUY
11. Tokyo National Museum, early history: https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=1815&lang=en
12. Charleston Museum, history and mission: https://www.charlestonmuseum.org/support-us/about-the-museum/
13. Museu Nacional, official information: https://www.museunacional.ufrj.br/guiaMN/Guia/paginas/1/amaisantiga.htm
14. Museo Nacional de Colombia, history: https://www.museonacional.gov.co/el-museo/Paginas/Historia.aspx
15. UNESCO, Museums, 2021 assessment: https://www.unesco.org/en/museums
16. TEA Global Experience Index 2024: https://www.teaconnect.org/news/official-release-2024-tea-global-experience-indextm ; full report: https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/files/87311/Global%20Experience%20Index%202024.pdf
17. Guinness World Records, most visited museum, data for 2024: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/781361-most-visited-museum-current
18. The Art Newspaper, art museum rankings in 2025: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/31/exclusive-the-worlds-100-most-visited-museums-in-2025-new-museums-a-big-hit-with-visitors
19. Korea.net, official overview of the 2025 ranking: https://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Culture/view?articleId=290017
20. The Art Newspaper, attendance for 2024 and explanations for individual buildings: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/04/01/the-worlds-most-visited-museums-2024-
21. Riotur, CCBB Rio as South American leader in the respective ranking for 2024: https://riotur.rio/editorial/ccbb-rio-comemora-36-anos-com-exposicoes-teatro-musica-e-programacao-cultural-em-outubro/
22. Egyptian State Information Service, Grand Egyptian Museum: https://sis.gov.eg/en/media-center/files/2025-yearender-the-year-of-the-gem/