These Are The 25 Best Museums In The World

25) Gold Museum, Bogotá

The museum displays a selection of Pre Hispanic gold work — the biggest collection in the world — in its exhibition rooms on the second and third floors. Together with other pottery, Rock geologystone, shell, wood and textile archaeological objects, these items, made of what to indigenous cultures was a sacred metal, testify to the life and thought of different societies which inhabited what is now known as Colombia before contact was made with Europe.

24) Te Papa Tongarewa

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land". The museum's principles incorporate the concepts of unified collections; the narratives of culture and place; the idea of forum; the bicultural partnership between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti; and an emphasis on diversity and multidisciplinary collaboration. In January 2013 Te Papa management announced the museum would be split into two parts – one operating much as it has in the past, and the other focusing on the future.

23) Inhotim

The Inhotim is a contemporary art museum in southeast Brazil. Founded by the mining billionaire Bernardo Paz, the contemporary art museum was once his own personal ranch. Paz converted the garden into a contemporary art space, and it opened to the public in 2006.

22) Terracotta Army

The Terra-Cotta Army is a collection of terra-cotta sculptures depicting the armies of the Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. The army was discovered in 1974 when farmers digging a water well stumbled upon pieces of the broken terra-cotta warriors. The farmers had accidentally discovered one of the most important archaeological excavations of the 20th century. The 16,300-square-meter excavation has more than 7,000 life-size terra-cotta figures of warriors and horses arranged in battle formations.

21) National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It has thousands of objects on display in the 161,145-square-feet space, including the 1903 Wright Flyer, Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, and the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, as well as the Albert Einstein Planetarium.

20) Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum is a Netherlands national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw. The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1800 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace and later in the Trippenhuis. The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer. The museum also has a small Asian collection which is on display in the Asian pavilion.

19) Louvre

The Louvre is one of the most well-known museums in the world, but it was not originally built to house a museum. The structure was built as a fortress, as Parisians feared that the Vikings would cross the sea from Scandinavia and raid Paris. The Louvre didn’t become a fine arts museum until 1793. The museum is now home to 35,000 masterpieces and some of the most famous pieces of art in existence: Venus de Milo, "Liberty Leading the People," Milon de Crotone, "Raft of the Medusa," Pysche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss — and of course, the "Mona Lisa."

18) Galleria Borghese

The Galleria Borghese is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621). The Villa was built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa at the edge of Rome. Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St Jerome Writing, Sick Bacchus and others. Other paintings of note include Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci.

17) Instituto Ricardo Brennand

The Ricardo Brennand Institute is a cultural institution located in the city of Recife, Brazil. It is a not-for-profit private organization, inaugurated in 2002 by the Brazilian collector and businessman Ricardo Brennand. It comprises a museum, an art gallery, a library and a large park. The Institute holds a permanent collection of historic and artistic objects of diversified provenience, ranging from Early Middle Ages to 20th century, with strong emphasis in objects, documents and artwork related to Colonial and Dutch Brazil, including the world's largest assemblage of paintings by Frans Post. The Institute also houses one of the largest collections of armory in the world, with 3,000 pieces, the majority of which produced in Europe and Asia between the 14th and 19th century. The library has over 62 thousand volumes, ranging from 16th to 20th century, including a collection of brasiliana and other rare items.

16) Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Christian patriarchal basilica (church), later an imperial mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.

15) The British Museum

The British Museum opened in 1753 and houses a permanent collection of over 8 million works. It has one of the largest collections of Egyptian mummies and ancient Greek sculptures. Some other treasures that can be found in the museum include: the Easter Island statue, one of the oldest mathematical instruments, and the earliest known image of Christ.

14) The National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction. The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Brown Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.

13) Vasa Museum

The Vasa Museum is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. Together with other museums such as Stockholm Maritime Museum, the museum belongs to the Swedish National Maritime Museums (SNMM).

12) National Gallery

The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Its collection belongs to the public of the United Kingdom and entry to the main collection is free of charge. It is among the most visited art museums in the world, after the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

11) The National WWII Museum

The National WWII Museum, formerly known as the National D-Day Museum, is a museum located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, at the corner of Andrew Higgins Boulevard and Magazine Street. It focuses on the contribution made by the United States to victory by the Allies in World War II, and the Battle of Normandy in particular. It was designated by the U.S. Congress as "America's National World War II Museum" in 2003, and the Museum maintains an affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution. The mission statement of the Museum emphasizes the American experience in World War II.

10) Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, and it is located on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem. It contains a 45-acre campus consisting of indoor museums, outdoor monuments, memorials, gardens, sculptures, and research and education centers. Yad Vashem's Hall of Names is a memorial that displays 600 photographs of Jews who died in the Holocaust.

9) Museo del Prado

The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish nation art museum, located in Madrid. The Museum, with one of the largest art collections in the world, is known for having works by Velasquez, Goya, and El Greco. The collection currently comprises about 7,600 paintings, 1,000 sculptures, 4,800 prints, and 8,200 drawings.

8) Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the world. It houses more than 2 million pieces of art spanning much of the history of human culture. The museum's permanent collections include works from nearly every time period and area of the world, including classical antiquity, Ancient Egypt, modern art, African art, Asian art, Islamic art, and many more.

7) Musee D’Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.

6) Galleria dell'Accademia

The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze, or "Gallery of the Academy of Florence", is an art museum in Florence, Italy. It is the home of Michelangelo's sculpture David. It also has other sculptures by Michelangelo and a collection of Renaissance paintings. It adjoins the Accademia di Belle Arti or academy of fine arts of Florence, but despite the name has no other connection with it.

5) Getty Center

The Getty Center sits atop a hill in Los Angeles and is well-known for its architecture, gardens, and spectacular views. The center also has an impressive collection of works by luminaries like Van Gogh, Monet, and Cezanne. Many of the galleries also have skylights with computer-controlled louvres that are programmed to adjust depending on the time of the day to achieve optimal illumination of the space.

4) Hermitage Museum

The collection at the State Hermitage has more than 3 million works of art from around the world. The Baroque sytle Winter Palace was home to the Russian monarchs until 1917, when the ruling dynasty was overthrown.

3) National Museum of Anthropology

The National Museum of Anthropology is located in a huge park in Mexico City. The museum has an extensive collection of archaeological artifacts (originals or replicas) from the numerous ancient cultures in Mexico, including: Olmec, Mexica, Maya, Golfo, Aztec and others.

2) Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) is an encyclopedic art museum located in Chicago's Grant Park. It features a collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in its permanent collection. Its holdings also include American art, Old Masters, European and American decorative arts, Asian art, modern and contemporary art, and architecture and industrial and graphic design. In addition, it houses the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries. Tracing its history to a free art school and gallery founded in 1866, the museum is located at 111 South Michigan Avenue in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. It is associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is overseen by Director and President Douglas Druick. It is one of the most visited art museums in the world with about 1.5 million visitors annually (2013), and with one million square feet in eight buildings, it is the second-largest art museum in the United States, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1) Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on its feet, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. It also lies on the archaeological site of Makrygianni and the ruins of a part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens. The museum was founded in 2003, while the Organisation of the Museum was established in 2008. It opened to the public on June 20, 2009. Nearly 4,000 objects are exhibited over an area of 14,000 square metres.The Organisation for the Construction of the new museum is chaired by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, Dimitrios Pandermalis.

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