Museums in the United Kingdom
2,059 museums in the United Kingdom. Most visited: National Gallery.
Top museums in the United Kingdom
National Gallery
Art museum · 6,416,724 visitors a year
Discover the vibrant world of art at the National Gallery, an iconic institution located in the heart of London. Housing a stunning collection of over 2,300 masterpieces, this renowned museum invites...
Free entryTate Modern
Art museum · 6,098,340 visitors a year
Discover the vibrant world of contemporary art at the Tate Modern, an iconic museum housed in a former power station along the Thames River in London. This architectural marvel not only captivates...
Free entryBritish Museum
Art museum · 5,820,000 visitors a year
With eight million artefacts, the British Museum holds the largest permanent collection in the world, tracing human history, art and culture from their beginnings to the present. Its best-known...
Free entryIndoor mapWebsite of British Museum
Natural History Museum, London
Natural history museum · 5,423,932 visitors a year
The Natural History Museum in London is a place where the story of life on Earth feels immediate and alive. Housed in a grand Romanesque building in South Kensington, the museum is as memorable as...
Victoria and Albert Museum
Art museum · 3,967,566 visitors a year
The Victoria and Albert Museum in the United Kingdom is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design. Its origins lie in the Government School of Design, established in...
Free entryScience Museum
Science and technology museum · 2,989,000 visitors a year
Puffing Billy, one of the world's oldest surviving steam locomotives, and the Apollo 10 command module that carried three astronauts around the Moon both stand on the ground floor of the Science...
Free entryTower of London
Historic house, palace or castle · 2,741,126 visitors a year
The Tower of London is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in London. It was founded toward the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest, and its keep was built from...
National Portrait Gallery
Art museum · 2,145,486 visitors a year
The National Portrait Gallery in London houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery...
Tate Britain
Art museum · 1,808,637 visitors a year
Nestled along the banks of the River Thames, Tate Britain stands as a beacon of British art and culture, housing an extensive collection that spans over 500 years. From the masterpieces of the 16th...
Free entryRoyal Academy of Arts
Art museum · 1,594,140 visitors a year
Artists, not curators, run the Royal Academy of Arts. Founded in 1768 under George III with Joshua Reynolds as its first president, it is governed by its members, the Royal Academicians, and still...
Scottish National Gallery
Art museum · 1,377,710 visitors a year
A Vermeer, a Velázquez painted when the artist was still a teenager, and Henry Raeburn's skating minister gliding across Duddingston Loch all hang under one roof in the Scottish National Gallery. The...
Free entryRiverside Museum
Transport museum · 1,131,814 visitors a year
Zaha Hadid's first major public building in the United Kingdom houses Glasgow's transport collection. Its zinc-clad, zigzagging roof rises where the River Kelvin meets the Clyde, on the site of the...
Serpentine Galleries
Art museum · 734,353 visitors a year
Every summer since 2000, the Serpentine Galleries have commissioned an architect who has never built in England to design a temporary pavilion on the lawn beside the gallery. Zaha Hadid designed the...
National Science and Media Museum
504,000 visitors a year
Few museums anywhere can project Cinerama, the three-strip widescreen format of the 1950s. The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford can, in its Pictureville cinema, which also has an IMAX...
Free entryScottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Art museum · 457,655 visitors a year
Charles Jencks's Landform, a sweep of grassy terraces and crescent pools, greets visitors on the lawn of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. It sits in front of one of two neoclassical...
Imperial War Museum Duxford
Military museum · 401,287 visitors a year
Duxford is a working airfield as well as a museum. Its grass and runway still see historic aircraft take off and land, and its First World War-era hangars and Battle of Britain buildings stand on the...
Kensington Palace
Historic house, palace or castle · 383,286 visitors a year
Queen Victoria was born at Kensington Palace in 1819 and was living here in 1837 when she learned she had become queen. The palace became a royal home in 1689, when William III and Mary II bought...
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery
Art museum · 340,000 visitors a year
Built as a memorial to Prince Albert, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery occupies a striking Gothic Revival building on Exeter's Queen Street that first opened in 1868. A major...
Imperial War Museum London
Military museum · 320,542 visitors a year
A pair of 15-inch naval guns, taken from the battleships HMS Ramillies and HMS Resolution, guard the entrance to Imperial War Museum London on Lambeth Road. Behind them stands a domed building that...
Free entryScottish National Portrait Gallery
Art museum · 312,877 visitors a year
Behind its red sandstone Gothic Revival facade on Queen Street in Edinburgh, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery was the first building in the world designed specifically as a portrait gallery....
Museums by city in the United Kingdom
- London204 museums
- Edinburgh27 museums
- Birmingham26 museums
- York21 museums
- Glasgow20 museums
- Manchester19 museums
- Bristol16 museums
- Liverpool16 museums
- Portsmouth15 museums
- Cambridge14 museums
- Newcastle upon Tyne14 museums
- Bath13 museums
- Sheffield13 museums
- Gillingham10 museums
- Leeds10 museums
- Southampton10 museums
- Bradford9 museums
- Brighton9 museums
- Dundee9 museums
- Leicester9 museums
- Oxford9 museums
- Aberdeen8 museums
- Belfast8 museums
- Cardiff7 museums
The United Kingdom’s museum landscape spans major national institutions and a dense network of regional collections. In London, visitors can move from the British Museum and the National Gallery to the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Natural History Museum, often within a single day. Mooseum helps make sense of these clusters with digital tours and indoor maps that are especially useful in large, busy museums.
Beyond the capital, museums reflect the distinct histories of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff, Belfast, and Bristol all have strong museum scenes, covering subjects such as shipbuilding, design, industry, archaeology, and social history. You will also find open-air museums, university museums, and historic houses that connect collections to the places where these stories unfolded.
The UK is particularly rich in museums tied to empire, trade, literature, railways, and everyday life. Coastal towns feature maritime collections, former mill and mining regions preserve industrial heritage, and castles and palaces interpret centuries of political change. On Mooseum, travelers can compare museums across regions, choose family-friendly stops, and navigate complex sites like the Tower of London or large gallery buildings more confidently.
VisitBritain
British Tourist Authority (VisitBritain/VisitEngland)
National tourism agency for Great Britain operating as VisitBritain/VisitEngland.
Featured museums
These museums in the United Kingdom offer richer digital content on Mooseum.
Map of museums in the United Kingdom
Museums in the United Kingdom: questions
- How many museums are there in the United Kingdom?
- Mooseum lists 2,059 museums in the United Kingdom. London has the most, with 204.
- Which cities in the United Kingdom have the most museums?
- London (204), Edinburgh (27), Birmingham (26), York (21) and Glasgow (20).
- What are the most visited museums in the United Kingdom?
- By annual visitors reported on Wikipedia: National Gallery (6,416,724), Tate Modern (6,098,340) and British Museum (5,820,000).
- What kinds of museums are in the United Kingdom?
- Of the 1,656 whose type we know, the most common are historic houses, palaces and castles (505), history museums (275), art museums (210) and transport museums (197).
- Which museums in the United Kingdom are free to visit?
- 13 museums list free general admission on their websites: National Gallery, Tate Modern, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum and 8 more. Special exhibitions can still charge.
- London’s museum districts bring together art, design, natural history, science, and archaeology within easy reach by Underground and bus.
- Regional museums in places like Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Cardiff often focus on industry, migration, sport, and working life.
- Historic sites such as the Tower of London, castle museums, and country houses combine collections with architecture and royal or military history.
- Maritime museums are a strong theme in port cities including Greenwich, Liverpool, Bristol, and Belfast, reflecting trade and naval history.
- Many UK museums offer free permanent collections, making it easier to mix major national museums with smaller local institutions.
- Many national museums in the UK have free general admission, but special exhibitions usually require timed paid tickets booked in advance.
- Opening hours often shorten in winter, and some smaller regional museums close one or two days a week, so check ahead before traveling.
- In London and other major cities, public transport is usually the easiest way to visit museum clusters; parking near central museums can be limited and expensive.
- School holidays and rainy weekends can make family museums especially busy, so early morning or late afternoon visits are often more comfortable.
From the blog
- The Most Visited Museums in the World and What Makes Them Special
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- London Museums I've Been Avoiding — A Belated To-Do List
I'm in London for a week with a long list and limited time. Here's my personal plan for the museums, galleries, and one-off experiences I don't want to miss — and what's free.
- 10 Best Museum Apps in 2026 — From Audio Guides to AI Art Recognition
Looking for the best museum app? We compared Bloomberg Connects, Smartify, Google Arts & Culture, and more to find the top apps for museum visits in 2026.
- Best Free Museums in Europe — A 2026 City-by-City Guide
From the British Museum to the Musée d'Art Moderne, these are the best free museums across London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and more. Plan your next European museum trip.
All museums in the United Kingdom
Every museum in the United Kingdom listed on Mooseum. Search by name or type.
| Name | Type | Website | Links | Stats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Military museum | www.100bgmus.org.uk |  | — | |
2 Willow RoadErnő Goldfinger designed this Modernist house in Hampstead for his own family. It is one of a terrace of three houses he completed in 1939, and it is now a Grade II* listed building. Goldfinger lived... | History museum | www.nationaltrust.org.uk/2-willow-road | | — |
Historic house, palace or castle | www.nationaltrust.org.uk/beatles-childhood-homes | | — | |
Historic house, palace or castle | www.nationaltrust.org.uk/575-wandsworth-road | | — | |
59 Rodney Street, LiverpoolThe studio where E. Chambré Hardman took most of his photographs survives at The Hardmans' House, 59 Rodney Street, alongside the darkroom where he developed and printed them. This Grade II listed... | Historic house, palace or castle | www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardmans-house | | — |
Historic house, palace or castle | www.78derngate.org.uk | | — | |
History museum | www.nationaltrust.org.uk/a-la-ronde | | — | |
Abbey Pumping Station MuseumFour working steam-powered beam engines, a type of engine in which a large rocking beam transfers the piston's motion to a pump, are the centrepiece of Abbey Pumping Station. They survive from the... | — | www.leicestermuseums.org/abbey-pumping-station | | — |
Abbeydale Industrial HamletA scythe-making works that ran until the 1930s survives almost intact at Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, a remarkably complete example of a 19th-century works on the River Sheaf in the south of... | Science and technology museum | www.simt.co.uk/abbeydale-industrial-hamlet | | — |
Art museum | www.abbothall.org.uk | | — | |
— | www.abbothouse.co.uk | | — | |
Garden or park | abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/gardens | | — | |
Aberdeen Art GalleryModern Scottish and international art is the strength of Aberdeen Art Gallery, the city's main space for the visual arts. Its collection includes works by Ken Currie, Gilbert & George, Ivor Abrahams,... | Art museum | www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/AAGM/plan-your-visit/aberdeen-art-gallery | | — |
Aberdeen Maritime MuseumOne of the oldest domestic buildings in Aberdeen, Provost Ross' House, forms part of Aberdeen Maritime Museum, alongside the former Trinity Congregational Church, which was converted into an... | Maritime museum | www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/AAGM/plan-your-visit/aberdeen-maritime-museum | | — |
Aberdeen Science CentreA former depot for Aberdeen's tram network on Constitution Street houses Aberdeen Science Centre, known as Satrosphere before it was renamed. The centre moved here from an earlier home on Justice... | Science and technology museum | aberdeensciencecentre.org | | — |
History museum | www.abergavennymuseum.co.uk | | — | |
— | www.ceramics-aberystwyth.com | | — | |
History museum | www.abingdon.gov.uk/partners/abingdon-county-hall-museum | | — | |
Historic house, palace or castle | www.actoncourt.com | | — | |
— | agcmuseum.org.uk | | — | |
Historic house, palace or castle | www.adlingtonhall.com | | — | |
Transport museum | aerospacebristol.org | | — | |
Zoo or aquarium | www.africa-alive.co.uk | | — | |
— | www.aigas.co.uk | | — | |
Military museum | www.paradata.org.uk/airborne-assault-museum | | — |