• Number of museums worldwide by region 2020

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According to UNESCO, the current estimated total number of museums in the world is around 95 thousand. The number of such institutions worldwide is not evenly distributed, with about 65 percent of museums located in Western Europe and North America as of May 2020. Overall, the United States alone recorded roughly one-third of all organizations, topping the list of the leading 20 countries worldwide ranked by number of museums.

Number of museums worldwide as of May 2020, by UNESCO regional classification

	Number of museums
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Source

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Sources

Release date

May 2020

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2020

Supplementary notes

*North America excluding the U.S.
**Non-member countries as of 2020.

The source specifies that figures were provided by: "UNESCO Member States that replied to the questionnaire on the implementation of the '2015 Recommendation concerning the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society' (published in 2019)" and compiled by "Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), Global Library Statistics, which lists libraries and museums from the following sources:

Saur compilation, Museums of the World, Munich, KG Saur Verlag/ De Gruyter, 2016 (23rd ed.). Except for the United States of America (Institute of Museums and Libraries Services, Museums data files".

The source adds the following information:
"These figures have been amended on the basis of the reports provided by Member States for the Recommendation follow-up (in 2019) and the data provided this year by UNESCO Field Offices. In the light of the above, these statistics should be viewed with caution. For example, the number of museums given for the United States of America has a large impact on the overall statistics (over 33,000 museums). On the other hand, the statistics given for Chinese museums (1,030) is clearly lower than other estimates found on the Internet (more than 5,000), but as these had not yet been validated by China in a previous report to UNESCO or by a Field Office, it was decided to maintain the figure given in the Directory of World Museums".