The Met Is Very Popular, But Not as Popular as Disneyland

by Corinna Kirsch on July 28, 2014 Blurb

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Online

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Met just announced its visitor figures for last year—over 6.2 million men, women, and children trekked out to the largest museum in the United States. Those figures let the Met’s rank stand steady as the third most visited museum in the world, right behind the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris. Yay, the masses like art! Perhaps the art world should feel flattered that it has so many fans?

Well, let’s hold off on the champagne and caprese tomato bites while we remember that humanity’s tourists prefer a wide variety of other, more patriotic and commercial locales like:

  • The Great Wall of China (10 million visitors)
  • The Las Vegas Strip (39.7 million visitors)
  • Niagara Falls (22.5 million visitors)
  • Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Orlando (17.5 million visitors)
  • Disneyland Park, Anaheim (16 million visitors)
  • The Eiffel Tower (6.9 million visitors)
  • Lotte World, Seoul (6.4 million visitors)
  • Navy Pier, Chicago (9.2 million visitors)
  • Forbidden City, Beijing (15.3 million visitors)
  • Notre Dame Cathedral (13.7 million visitors)

Okay, so it’s not that surprising that people prefer Mickey to Matisse. For as much stock as we put into the numbers game (which, here at AFC, is very little because we are not BuzzFeed), the Met is still winning—it has about as many visitors at the Eiffel Tower, and beats out stateside attractions like the Statue of Liberty (4 million visitors) and Graceland (600,000 visitors). Oh, and every other museum in New York. Boooooom.

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