Citi des Sciences et de l'Industrie
World’s Top 10 Science Centers, most visited Science Museums, data as of 2010 / 2011
Top 10 Science Centers – Worldwide
1. Citi des Sciences et de l’Industrie 5,000,000
2. Science Museum, London 2,700,000
3. Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, 2,500,000
2. National Science and Technology Museum, Taiwan 2,050,790
4. Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago 1,605,020
5. Pacific Science Center, Seattle 1,602,000
6. Museum of Science, Boston 1,600,000
7. Science City, Kolkata 1,522,726
8. Ontario Science Center 1,509,912
9. Deutsches Museum, Munich 1,500,000
10. California Science Center Los Angeles, Los Angeles 1,400,000
Top 10 Science Centers – USA
1. Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago 1,605,020
2. Pacific Science Center, Seattle 1,602,000
3. Museum of Science, Boston 1,600,000
4. California Science Center Los Angeles, Los Angeles 1,400,000
5. St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis 1,400,000
6. Franklin Institute 892,804
7. Liberty Science Center, Jersey City 866,000
8. Fernbank Science Center, Atlanta 865,000
9. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco 882,000
10. Exploratorium 600,000
Working on understanding “Museum Satisfaction” in different types of museums, starting by creating lists of the world’s top museums by category. (Art Museums, Children’s Museums, Natural History Museums, Science Centers, Corporate Museums). Will then work on surveying the public on “Museum Satisfaction” by type of museum. I started with the Top 10 Art Museums visitation.
Visitor attendance data for Science Centers is much more difficult to find. For Science Centers, in the USA, I am using 2010 Annual Reports when available, please do not quote the data as it is unverified. I am interested in feedback and omissions.
I believe museum visitation starts prior to visiting the “bricks and mortar”, Interested in “museum satisfaction” for both the local museum and the global museums and understanding how local museums can compete in a new global market. A latter step will be comparing museum visitation as compared to museum website visitation of the world’s top museums by category.
Making a distinction between Science Centers and Natural History Museums, Top 10 Natural History Museums is my next project then, corporate museums and Children’s Museums. The definition of types of museum is not constant between countries, and the definition of what counts towards museum statistics differs between countries. Even within countries, what counts as a “visit” differs museum to museum , some museums count all entries through the doors, including staff, contractors, off site programs and with “sister museums”, making comparing worldwide data very difficult.
Resources:
Asia Pacific Network of Science and Technology Centres: http://www.aspacnet.org/
Association of Science-Technology Centres: http://www.astc.org/
Australasian Science and Technology Exhibitors Network: http://www.astenetwork.net/
British Interactive Group: http://www.big.uk.com/
Canadian Association of Science Centres: http://www.canadiansciencecentres.ca/
European Network of Science Centres and Museums: http://www.ecsite.eu/
North Africa and Middle East Science Centers Network: http://namesnetwork.org/
National Council of Science Museums: http://www.ncsm.org.in/
Network for the Popularisation of Science and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean: http://www.redpop.org/
Southern African Association for Science and Technology Centres: http://www.saastec.co.za/
Cultural Policies: http://culturaincifre.istat.it/sito/musei/musei.htm
Touring Club Italiano: http://static.touring.it/store/document/19_file.pdf
UNESCO: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Culture/Pages/default.aspx
EGMUS: http://www.egmus.eu
Cultural Policies: http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/index.php
Official Museum Directory: http://www.officialmuseumdirectory.com
American Association of Museums: http://www.aam-us.org/
International Council of Museums: http://icom.museum/
