Top 20 Must-See Museums Around the World

Twenty museums. One lifetime. You can do it! From the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the British Museum in London, visit our picks for the world's best museums.

April 05, 2021

20: National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa)

This museum has a great collection of art spanning the Middles Ages to the present day, including American, Indian, European, Inuit and Canadian works. It offers a unique, near-complete overview of Canadian art — from early Quebec religious work, through Inuit work from the 1950s, to avant-garde contemporaries, via the well-represented Group Of Seven, whose passion in the early 20th century was to create an art that derived exclusively from Canada and its sublime landscapes. The successful fruits of their labor captured the spirit of a country, and are now displayed on these walls. Check the website before visiting, as this museum is temporarily closed.

19: The Shrine of the Book (Israel)

The Shrine of the Book's collection contains some of the most important cultural artifacts and documents in existence pertaining to the history of Christianity. Although the manuscripts are never on display in their entirety, there is always some part to see. The exhibition "A Day at Qumran" tells the story of the Essenes, the people behind the scrolls and something of their day-to-day existence 2,000 years ago. The Shrine of the Book also holds the earliest known full text of the Bible.

18: Museo Nacional de Antropologa (Mexico)

This vast complex contains one of the most magical museum environments in the world; its 20-acre plot in Chapultepec Park is full of foliage, waterfalls, pools and statues. Downstairs is an incomparable display of pre-Columbian art, upstairs an excellent collection of Mexican folk art and throughout you'll find the work of recent Mexican artists and sculptors.

17: Mauritshuis (Netherlands)

The Mauritshuis may not have the encyclopedic scope of many of the other museums in this list, nor are its holdings as extensive. However, what it does exceptionally well is play to its strengths — in this case, pictures from the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age. One of the masterpieces on view: Vermeer's "View of Delft" miraculously handles real light and atmosphere in paint and conveys an overwhelming sense of rest; at a quick glance it also appears to describe the museum and its immediate environs. Check the website before visiting, as this museum is temporarily closed.

16: Tokugawa Art Museum (Japan)

The Tokugawa family reigned over Japan from 1600 to 1868. Under them, the country enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history. This time span is also known as the Edo period, during which the arts flowered in Japan. Artists of this period directly influenced Western masters such as Manet, Gauguin and Whistler and have since gone on to become household names. Other exhibits at the Tokugawa Art Museum effectively present and contextualize, through accurately reproduced environments, aspects of Japanese life at the time. They include exquisite samurai swords and armor, pottery and clothing.

15: Kimbell Art Museum (Texas)

Designed by one of the world's greatest architects — Louis I. Kahn — the Kimball Art Museum architecture actually enhances your experience of the art it holds inside. The secret lies in the silver metal reflectors that relay the light from the sky outside, across the ceilings and down the walls. Such an abundance of natural light, the airy, spacious exhibition halls and the sunken Zen-like sculpture garden outside, created by and featuring work by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, make for a most relaxing visit.

14: Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

Highlights of this museum's collection include a grand rotunda lined with John Singer Sargent's expert portraiture, an intense, 4th-century Christian marble bust of St. Paul at prayer, and a sumptuous painting that questions life and our very existence, Paul Gauguin's "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" However, the jewel in the MFA's crown is without a doubt its Asian galleries.

13: Museo Nacional del Prado (Spain)

You can't blame the Prado for beaming with national pride. It contains the world's greatest collection of Spanish paintings (from the 12th to 19th centuries), though only a third of its artwork is ever on display. The masters Velasquez and Goya are especially well represented, but the Prado's collection of international work is strong too.

12: The Museum of Modern Art (New York)

Founded by 3 wealthy women in 1929 as the first museum to ever be dedicated solely to modern art, MoMA was, from the get-go, something different. It has become the greatest and most complete collection on Earth of late 19th- and early 20th-century art, and often wows with its more recent acquisitions and temporary exhibitions. MoMA's stunning building by Japanese architect Yoshio Tanaguchi, is as much a work of art as its collection.

11: The Egyptian Museum (Cairo)

As well as gathering together some of the finest archaeological finds from all Egypt, this museum also provides a rare opportunity to simply pop in and within minutes be standing face-to-face with one of the greatest works of mankind, Tutankhamun's golden mask. A portrait of unbelievable quality, craftsmanship and beauty, the highly polished gold face — at once a god, a king and a teenager — glistens like water: delicate, magnetic yet untouchable all at the same time.

10: Kunsthistorisches Museum (Austria)

Like the Medici in Florence, the Hapsburgs of Vienna were wealthy, enthusiastic patrons and collectors of art. Their legacy is one that sits Vienna and the Kunsthistorisches on top of the pile of the richest art cities in Europe. Today their mighty collections of royal carriages, decorative arts and sculpture, coins, a castle, books, armor, musical instruments, European paintings, as well as Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Near Eastern antiquities, are spread throughout eight buildings across the city. Check the website before visiting, as this museum is temporarily closed.

9: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)

A block of New York's Upper East Side, sandwiched between the Museum Mile of Fifth Avenue and Central Park, contains works plucked from 50,000 years of human creativity, belief and power. The Met, as it's more commonly known, is a powerhouse. Its collection spans the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as the ancient, classical and Islamic worlds. The works include painting, photography, sculpture, glass, costume, interior design, musical instruments, antiquities, armor, statuary and the entire first-century Egyptian Temple of Dendur.

8: The National Archaeological Museum (Greece)

This museum holds the greatest collection of ancient Greek art on Earth. It is in these remnants of antiquity that we see the birth of the concept of the importance of human thought and creativity. These ideas are evident in the museum's 5th-century B.C. bronze Zeus, perfectly poised to throw a lightening bolt. Modeled so as to be freestanding, he is the result of close observation. The study appears to be of a god, but in truth it is the study of a man. Check the website before visiting, as this museum is temporarily closed.

7: The National Palace Museum (Taiwan)

The pieces in the collection of the National Palace Museum are the result of more than a thousand years of personal, imperial collecting. The most turbulent period of the collection's upheaval was between 1924 and 1965. Between these years the Chinese emperors, their courts and treasures were taken out of the Forbidden City (or Palace Museum) and put on the move constantly to dodge a warlord's troops, the Japanese and finally the Communist army.

6: The State Hermitage Museum (Russia)

Spending just a second in front of each piece in the Hermitage's collection would take up over 3 weeks of your time. Its 2 million items are spread throughout 5 palaces built over 5 centuries. As with the Prado and Uffizi, it's best to stick with what's uniquely local (despite excellent Picassos, Matisses and Italian High Renaissance paintings). Focus on the artwork and artifacts of the 6th- to 4th-century B.C. tribes who populated this part of the world and buried their leaders and gentry deep underground.

5: Vatican City (Italy)

Vatican City museums contains some of the finest works of Italian art from the Renaissance and High Renaissance. The dome was designed by Michelangelo, the portico created by Bernini, and St. Peter was martyred here. Fact and legend coalesce on this spot, making it one of the most overwhelming and intoxicating places on Earth. Of the tens of thousands of works on display (spread throughout around 1,400 rooms), a few stand out from the others: The "Belvedere Torso" and marble "Laocoon" are both staple models, called upon by artists throughout art history.

4: Galleria degli Uffizi (Italy)

What the Prado is to Spanish art, the Uffizi is to Italian. But more so. It too has a small, but strong collection of foreign works, and some of its native creations are split between other institutions, like the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris. The collection was born and cultivated by the enormously philanthropic Medici family over a number of centuries. The fruits of their generous patronage are beguiling.

3: The Natural History Museum (London)

In the late 19th century, the British national collection was split 2 ways: one half became the British Museum (the museum of all mankind); the other became the Natural History Museum (the museum of all creation). Here, in the Natural History's 70 million or so specimens, lies the evidence of what man has learned over the last 250 years. So important is this collection, that parts of it have been presented over the centuries as evidence used to debate and argue the age of the planet and the evolution of life. The museum reopens to the public May 17, 2021.

2: The Louvre (Paris)

The Louvre is France's finest cultural institution, and one that wears its history on its sleeve. You can enter via a contemporary glass pyramid, walk around its 12th-century fortress perimeter underground, follow the ornate stairways of the 16th-century kings between galleries and, thanks to the 18th-century French Revolution, walk through nearly every room in the building. After viewing the "Venus de Milo," notice the ceiling of the small room beyond; it will tell you more about the "Venus'" influence on art history than the sculpture's explanatory plaque. Check the website before visiting, as this museum is temporarily closed.

1: The British Museum (London)

A quick glance at what the British Museum has lost will tell you much about the importance of what remains; its natural history and library collections alone formed separate institutions, each taking their place amongst the greatest of their kind in the world. A (free-of-charge) visit to this museum is vital. In the words of its current director, in the British Museum "you can locate your culture in the context of the whole world." The museum will reopen to the public May 17, 2021.

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