You have probably already visited them; they are the largest and most famous museums in the world... So let's go to discover the biggest museums in the world.

1. The Louvre Palace

With nearly 10 million annual visitors, the Louvre Museum is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and popular museums in the world.

With an exhibition area of more than 73,000 m², it ranks first in the world ranking, with more than 35,000 works exhibited (460,000 in reserve). The museum's collections are divided into eight departments: the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, the Department of Oriental Antiquities, the Department of Islamic Arts, the Department of Paintings, the Department of Sculptures, the Department of Works of Art and the Department of Graphic Arts.

Not to mention that the Louvre is not limited to the walls of the palace? The Carrousel and Tuileries gardens, the Eugène-Delacroix museum, and the gypsotheque in Versailles are also attached to it, and await your visit.

2. The Vatican Museum

The Vatican Museum, located in the Vatican City State, combines nearly 12 museums into one. Artistic treasures are to be discovered there, commissioned or collected by the papacy within its walls: paintings, sculptures, frescoes... The museum impresses with its size (7km of rooms!) and the masterpieces of the greatest masters ( Raphael, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Titian, Michelangelo) that it houses. Nearly 6 million visitors flock each year to discover the wonders it contains!

3. The Hermitage Museum

The numbers give the spin. 60,000 rooms, 10,000 rooms, 3 million exhibited works, 230,000 m2 of surface area... The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg is this world heritage juggernaut that dethrones all the major museums in the four corners of the planet and accumulates superlatives. The biggest museum in the world in terms of exhibits, largest collection of paintings in the world (more than 16,000 paintings), the museum inaugurated in 1764 houses precious witnesses of Scythian art, objects from ancient Greece and Rome in addition to numerous paintings by Italian and French masters.

The essentials: Madonna Litta by Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Lady in Blue by Cézanne, Pietà by Veronese, The Lute Player by Caravaggio, Portrait of Doña Antonia Zárate by Goya, Danaé by Rembrandt...

4. National Museum of China

In 2003, two museums merged to create the National Museum of China, located in Beijing. It is also one of the largest museums in the world. The collections reveal the evolution of Chinese art, from Ancient China to the end of the Qing imperial dynasty in 1912.

5. Tokyo National Museum

Founded in 1872, it is Japan's oldest and largest museum. The museum's collections concern ancient Japanese art and Asian art along the Silk Road. In addition to a large collection of Greco-Buddhist art.

6. National Museum of Korea

National Museum of Korea is the most important museum complex in all of South Korea, and during its history, it has been moved several times from one place to another. The current location was chosen in 2005, in Yongsan Park in Seoul.

7. The Soumaya Museum

Property of the Fundación Carlos Slim, the Soumaya Museum, which bears the name of the late wife of Carlos Slim, imposes its spectacular facade in the heart of Mexico City. Based upon the curves of Rodin's sculptures, this steel giant designed by architect Fernando Romero surprises with its facade, entirely covered with 17,000 hexagons that reflect sunlight. Its 6,000 m² of exhibition area hosts over 64,000 works of Latin American art, paintings, and works by European artists, namely Picasso, Dalí, Rodin...

8. Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum is the largest museum in the Western world. Its collection of over two million works of art from around the world. It is enormous not only in its scope, with works ranging from antiquity to the present day, but also in its library holdings, so provided in some areas that they could be considered museums on their own. Its European paintings are exceptional: there are works by Botticelli, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, Rodin, and other luminaries of painting. The Egyptian collection includes the Tomb of Perneb (around 2440 BC) and the superb Temple of Dendur (around 23-10 BC). The American Wing is dedicated to American arts and crafts, including a room from one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses. And the list continues.

9. Art Institute of Chicago

Founded in 1879 and guarded by two bronze lions at the entrance, the Chicago Art Institute features one of the primary art collections in the world; it houses more than 300,000 pieces and hosts annually rotating exhibitions and hundreds of galleries.

10. British Museum

Britain's largest museum watches over the national archaeological and ethnographic collection. Above eight million objects ranging from prehistoric bones to pieces of the Athenian Parthenon, entire halls of Assyrian palaces, and exquisite gold jewelry are on display here.

The essentials: the Egyptian gallery, which can boast of housing the second largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of Egypt, including the Rosetta stone engraved in 196 BC.

11. Victoria and Albert Museum

Founded in 1852, this museum is named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of the United Kingdom. Mainly themed in the architectural and decorative arts, the Kensington Museum in London highlights their love and patronage of the arts and sciences.

The whole museum houses a permanent collection of more than 2.3 million objects ranging from ancient Chinese ceramics to the clothes of Vivienne Westwood, the "enfant terrible of fashion," to posters of David Bowie.

12. Royal Ontario Museum

The largest Canadian museum, the ROM, located in Toronto, lists nearly 6 million works. In addition, you can discover various exhibitions on the art and culture of the great world civilizations, as well as a natural history museum. The museum, inaugurated in 1914, was extended in 2002 by architects Daniel Libeskind and Bregman and Hamann Architects. A contemporary facade is thus superimposed on the original building; to discover!