Museums in China
1,013 museums in 403 cities. Showing the 403 most museum-dense cities · 170 more are available via the search bar above.
China's museum sector has undergone extraordinary expansion in the 21st century, growing from around 2,000 institutions in 2000 to over 6,000 today. The Palace Museum in Beijing's Forbidden City — the world's largest palace complex, now drawing 17 million visitors annually — anchors the collection, but the National Museum of China on Tiananmen Square, the Shanghai Museum and the Terracotta Warriors museum near Xi'an each rank among Asia's most important institutions. The country has invested heavily in purpose-built museum architecture: Zaha Hadid's Changsha Meixi Lake Museum, the Suzhou Museum designed by I.M. Pei, and the new West Bund Museum in Shanghai (a collaboration with Centre Pompidou) exemplify this wave. Free admission policies at most national museums have driven visitor numbers to levels unmatched anywhere in the world.
Key institutions: Palace Museum / Forbidden City (Beijing), Terracotta Warriors (Xi'an), National Museum of China (Beijing), Shanghai Museum, Suzhou Museum
Top 50 Museums in China
Ranked by editorial composite
All museums by city
