Palace Museum Tops Global Museum Attendance Ranking
The 2025 TEA Global Experience Index ranks the world's 20 most-visited museums, with Asia claiming 14 of the spots.
Updated on Nov. 2, 2026 in Fine Art
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Beijing's Palace Museum ranked first with 19 million visitors in the 2025 TEA Global Experience Index, published October 27, 2026. Fourteen of the 20 most-visited museums worldwide are located in Asia, including 12 in China.
Why it matters
The index shows how attendance is concentrated in Asia, with China accounting for more top-20 entries than any other country. The TEA report attributes China's strong figures partly to its large domestic audience and to free museum entry.
Attendance figures from the TEA index place Beijing's Palace Museum at 19 million visitors, ahead of the Louvre's 9.04 million. The index does not explain how each institution's count was verified.
The players
TEA (Travel Experience Analytics)
The organization that publishes the Global Experience Index, which ranks museums by worldwide attendance.
Palace Museum
Beijing's former imperial palace complex, which the index ranks as the world's most-visited museum.
Musée du Louvre
The Paris art museum, ranked fourth in the 2025 index with 9.04 million visitors.
The details
Beijing's Summer Palace drew 17.38 million visitors and Xi'an's Qin Shihuang Mausoleum Museum drew 10.97 million, placing both in the top ten. Five European institutions appear in the global top 20, led by the Louvre in Paris and the Palace of Versailles, while London's Natural History Museum ranks seventh with 7.11 million visitors.
Timeline
• Attendance figures are ranked for calendar year 2025.
• The TEA Global Experience Index was published on October 27, 2026.
Seasonal Patterns
The TEA index's annual attendance rankings show a continuing shift in where the world's most-visited museums are located, with Asian institutions now holding 14 of the top 20 positions. Its 2025 figures continue the pattern of large domestic audiences driving attendance at Chinese museums.
Free entry at 91 percent of China's registered museums means many of the highest-attended institutions cost visitors nothing to enter. Travelers planning museum visits in the top-ranked cities should verify each institution's current admission rules before going.
The takeaway
Attendance rankings reflect both audience size and access policy, so free-entry institutions can draw large crowds that paid venues may not match. Readers planning museum trips can compare entry rules alongside rankings before choosing destinations.
Further reading
Explore more Fine Art coverage on the museums and exhibitions shaping global audiences.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Firstpost.
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