Even with travel restrictions, curfews and closures of tourist attractions all over the world due to coronavirus pandemic, the Museé de Louvre still saw 2.7 million people visiting its exhibitions in 2020. As our chart shows, the runner-ups for the title of most-visited museum in the past year don’t really come close.
Coming in second place is the National Museum in China situated in Beijing with roughly 1.6 million visitors. Even though it was established in 2003 by merging the two separate museums housed in the same building, the Museum of the Chinese Revolution founded in 1950 and the National Museum of Chinese History created in 1912, the state-led institution is still the youngest on the list. The Vatican Museums, on the other hand, are only in fourth place when it comes to the number of visitors, but were founded by Pope Julius II in 1506, making them one of the oldest still existing museums in Europe.
Overall, museum attendance went down by roughly 78 percent across the 20 most-attended museums in the world, with only 22.4 million people visiting those kinds of institutions in 2020. According to a survey by the International Council of Museums conducted in September and October of 2020, the impact of COVID-19 will be most visible in a reduction of public programs and exhibitions. 67 and 62 percent of respondents, respectively, named these consequences of the pandemic as likely, while only six percent believed that their museum had to close for good.
This chart shows the museums with the highest attendance figures in 2020.
