Museums compared: Who has the most visitors?
We show which museum is the most visited - and what the visitor numbers are like.
The Swiss Museum of Transport recorded over 1 million visitors in 2023, while the Kunstmuseum Basel had 310,000 visitors in the same period. What is the relationship between the different types of museums?
We collect the most up-to-date studies on museums in German-speaking countries. There are exciting statistics that provide insight into visitor numbers, as well as the working conditions and structures in the museum.
Surprise! The majority of museums are not dedicated to the history of art or technology. Did you know that a whopping 43.6% of museums in Germany and 32.2% of Swiss museums are regional museums?
Larger institutions are probably better known – but the majority of museums are smaller institutions with regional and local references. Here are the most important figures by type of museum:
Germany 🇩🇪
📍6,809 museums
👉 46.6 % Regional and local museums
👉 14.9 % Cultural History
👉 13.0 % Science + Technology
👉 10.6 % Art Museums
👉 7.8 % Historical + Archaeological Museums
👉 4.4 % Natural History Museums
👉 4.2 % Castle and palace museums
👉 2.0 % Other
Switzerland 🇨🇭
📍1,081 museums
👉 32.2 % Regional and local museums
👉 15.0 % Art Museums
👉 13.6 % Technical Museums
👉 11.1 % History Museums
👉 5.5 % Natural Science Museums
👉 2.4 % Archaeological museums
👉 1.4 % Ethnographic museums
👉 18.9 % Other
To make the whole thing a little clearer, we have worked it up in a diagram.
To explain:
Many institutions are dependent on volunteer work : the volunteer rate is particularly high in regional and local museums (82.0% in Switzerland). The rate is almost twice as high as in natural science museums (46.0%) or art museums (41.2%).
Almost one in five (18.9%) in Switzerland falls under the category of "other museums", which are usually dedicated to a single theme that cannot be assigned to any other category (e.g. frog museum or toy museum).
Sources: Federal Statistical Office FSO / Institute for Museum Research
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