Museum

Museum
The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt The Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, Canada The Hong Kong Museum of Art in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong The House of Slaves in Gorée, Senegal Diorama at the Indian Museum in Kolkata, India Gallery at the Sukiennice Museum in Kraków, Poland

A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Museums host a much wider range of objects than a library, and usually focus on a specific theme, such as the arts, science, natural history or local history. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world attracting millions of visitors annually.

Since the establishment of the earliest known museum in ancient times, museums have been associated with academia and the preservation of rare items. Museums originated as private collections of interesting items, and not until much later did the emphasis on educating the public take root.