The Netherlands has produced some very famous artists, such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Jan Steen and Karel Appel. Every year, millions of tourists come here to visit the many museums this country has to offer. But which of them was the most popular in 2017? The answer may surprise you...

A record number of visitors

Last year, the most visited museum in the Netherlands was the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which closed the year with a record number of 2.260.000 visitors, beating out the well-known Rijksmuseum (2.160.000), whose visitors numbers have actually been declining over the years.

As expected, the Director of the Van Gogh museum, Alex Rüger, was thrilled with the news: “This milestone demonstrates how Vincent van Gogh still inspires innumerable people all around the world. That is fantastic.”

People from more than 125 countries visited the museum last year, however, it was visited the most by the Dutch themselves. Followed closely by visitors from the United States, Italy, France, Great Britain and Germany.

Most appreciated museum

Not only is the Van Gogh Museum the most visited museum in the Netherlands, it’s also the most appreciated museum in Europe, and the 2nd most appreciated museum in the world, according to a study done by the Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 2017.

“European respondents placed the Van Gogh Museum in first place in this reputation ranking, closely followed by the Louvre. That is something that the museum is very proud of, as that’s ultimately what it all comes down to: the quality of the museum visit”, said Rüger.

Top 5 museums on social media

The museum’s online presence has grown as well, with the combined Facebook pages of the Van Gogh Museum and Vincent van Gogh (both managed by the museum) having more than 4.4 million followers, its Twitter account around 1.4 million, and Instagram account over 500.000. This puts the museum in the top 5 of museums on social media.

The other museums being the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Saatchi Gallery.

Museumkaart (Museum Card) sees numbers grow as well

More and more people buy a Museumkaart to visit popular Dutch museums like the Van Gogh Museum. It was first introduced in 1981. Nowadays, you can visit over 400 museums in the Netherlands with it for a price of 59,50 euros (adult) and 32,45 euros (child) per year.

In 2017, more than 1.3 million people owned a Museumkaart. This is a growth of 4 percent, compared to the previous year. On average, card holders visited 6 museums.

The organisation behind the Museumkaart, Stichting Museumkaart, credits this growth to the number and quality of museum exhibitions on offer, as well as the renovation and reopening of several museums.