The Musée du Louvre was the world’s most visited museum in 2008 with 8.5 million attendees, reports Bloomberg via the Art Newspaper. The British Museum came in second with 5.93 million visitors. The rankings were based on figures received by the Art Newspaper from the museums themselves.

In 2007, the Paris museum also came in first place, although the British Museum was ranked fourth.

Other well attended museums in 2008 include the National Gallery in Washington, D.C, with 4.96 million visitors, the Tate Modern in London with 4.95 million visitors, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with 4.82 million visitors, and the Vatican Museums in Rome with 4.44 million visitors. 

The highest-ranked Asian museum was Tokyo's National Art Center, number 13 with 2.47 million visitors. But Japan managed to snag the top spot for the highest number of visitors to an individual exhibition, with an average of 17,926 people per day seeing the “60th Annual Exhibition of Shoso-in Treasures” at the Nara National Museum in Tokyo.