Seoul: The National Museum of Korea announced on Friday that it has achieved a significant milestone, with its annual attendance surpassing 5 million visitors for the first time in its 80-year history.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the museum recorded a total of 5,016,382 visitors from January 1 until Wednesday, marking a 69.7 percent increase from approximately 2.96 million visitors during the same period last year. Out of the total visitors, 4.83 million were South Koreans, while 185,705 were foreign nationals. This achievement marks a historic moment for the museum, which was established in 1945.
The increase in attendance is attributed to the growing global interest in Korean culture, partly fueled by the popularity of the Netflix animated film "KPop Demon Hunters." In the previous year, only four museums worldwide recorded more than 5 million visitors, as reported by The Art Newspaper, a British art publication. The Louvre in Paris topped the list with 8.74 million visitors, followed by the Vatican Museums with 6.83 million, the British Museum with 6.48 million, and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art with 5.73 million. London's Tate Modern was fifth with 4.6 million visitors.