World’s Top Museums Drew Over 200 Million Visits in 2025

Museums are drawing crowds again. According to The Art Newspaper's closely watched annual survey, published on 31 March 2026, the world's 100 most visited art museums attracted more than 200 million visits in 2025, a robust recovery from the depths of the pandemic, when the same group drew just 54 million visits in 2020. While still short of the 230 million recorded in 2019, the figures point to a public eager to return to galleries and to discover new ones.

For another year, the Louvre in Paris reigned as the world's most visited museum, welcoming more than nine million people. But some of the most striking stories came from beyond the established Western capitals. The National Museum of Korea in Seoul leaped about 70 percent year on year to reach 6.5 million visitors, while Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology set a record with 5.1 million, up 36 percent on the previous year, evidence of explosive cultural appetite across Asia and Latin America.

New institutions also proved a major draw. The newly opened V&A East Storehouse in London averaged around 60,000 visitors a month after debuting in May 2025, showing how fresh, imaginative spaces can pull in audiences who might never have visited a traditional museum. The survey captured a broader pattern in which inventive new venues and reimagined collections are helping expand who feels welcome in the world of art.

Behind the numbers lies something hopeful: a renewed public hunger for art, history, and shared cultural experience. After years of closures and uncertainty, people are once again choosing to spend their free time among paintings, sculptures, and artifacts, gathering in spaces built for wonder and reflection. The surge in places like Seoul and Mexico City also signals a gradual rebalancing of the cultural map, as great museums flourish far beyond their traditional centers, and as more of the world's people claim their place in the global conversation about art and heritage.