Louvre most visited museum in 2008

With some 8.5 million visitors, the Louvre in Paris has been announced as the world's most visited museum in 2008 by The Art Newspaper. 

The British Museum in London with 5.93 million and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. with 4.96 million visitors came in second and third. 

London's Tate Modern, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Vatican Museums in Rome ranked next with 4.95, 4.82 and 4.44 million visitors respectively. 

The highest-ranked Asian museum was Tokyo's National Art Center which won the 13th place with 2.47 million visitors. 

The newspaper also listed the 2008 exhibitions with the largest number of daily visitors and Japan won the first two spots with the 60th Annual Exhibition of Shoso-in Treasures at the Nara National Museum ( with about 17,926 visitors a day) and the National Treasures from Yakushi-ji Temple at the Tokyo National Museum ( with approximately 12,762 viewers a day). 

The rankings were based on the figures received by The Art Newspaper from each museum.