Museums continue to be popular in Estonia

In 2018, there were 190 museums with 249 visiting places in Estonia. Every third museum was a local lore museum, a quarter were special museums that were specialised in some narrower field.

Special museums were the most popular among visitors – with a total of more than 750 thousand visits last year. Many visits were also made to art museums, in total 650 thousand.

The biggest share of attendances in educational programmes can be also found in art museums and special museums. School-age visitors participated mostly in educational programmes of special museums and science and technology museums, whereas the adults preferred programmes offered by art museums.

Notwithstanding a slight decline in the number of visits, Estonia still holds one of the top places in Europe. In 2018, there were over 2,500 museum visits per 1,000 inhabitants in Estonia, which, according to the European Group of Museum Statistics (EGMUS), is one of the highest scores in Europe and in most of the other European countries it is significantly lower.

On Saturday, 18 May, Estonia celebrates the European Night of Museums. Once a year, on a Saturday in May, museums are open for longer than usual and entrance is free for everyone. This year, the theme of the museum night in Estonia is “Night of Patterns”. Visitors are invited to notice patterns around us and ask which parts of the patterns we are. See also: https://www.muuseumioo.ee/en

Statistics Estonia studied which patterns can be formed from the data on participation in educational programmes of museums.

For the statistical activity “Museum”, the main representative of public interest is the Ministry of Culture, commissioned by whom Statistics Estonia analyses the data necessary for conducting this statistical activity. The classification of museums is based on UNESCO classification.