Map of Museums in the U.S.A.
This is an interactive map of Museums in the United States. It shows Science, History, Geology Museums and more displayed in different colors. For names, hover over the map. For more detail, zoom in. For more information, scroll down.
🏛 Museum Key 🏛 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
● | Pioneer, Trail | ● | Science, Natural History | ● | History |
● | Transportation | ● | Art | ● | Technology |
● | Military | ● | Geology, Mining | ● | Children |
● | School | ● | Other |
Museums
Museums are the places where objects are exhibited and conserved.
What is defined as a museum includes arboretums, botanical gardens, nature centers; historical societies, historic preservation organizations, and history museums; science and technology centers; planetariums; children’s museums; art museums; general museums; natural history and natural science museums; and zoos, aquariums, and wildlife conservation centers.
As a museum lover, I wanted to find where are the museums throughout the United States. I also wanted to see what type was the most common and if there was a trend.
According to UNESCO, along with the rise in cultural tourism, the number of museums around the world has increased from 22,000 in 1975 to 100,000 today.
The country with the most museums in the world is the United States with over 33,000, followed by Germany with 6,700 and Japan with 5,700.
If we talk about museums per capita, it is a whole different story.
According Landgeist, the countries with the most museums per capita are Niue, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, and Iceland.
This list is dominated by microstates. The island of Niue has a population of 68, but it has its own museum.
Meanwhile Iceland has 192.6 museums per million inhabitants.
When it comes to cities, London England has the most museums followed by Mexico City in Mexico.
If you wish to find where are the most interesting museums, Amazon has Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums: Stories and Memorable Moments from People Who Love Museums. This book is a love letter to museums and museum-goers, filled with lush and whimsical illustrations paired with stories and anecdotes.
Museums in the United States
California is the state with the most museums, about 3,000.
Followed by New York with over 2,500. In third place is Texas with more than 2,000.
When it comes to number of museums per capita Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are the leaders.
As of counties L.A. County has the most museums followed by New York County, and Chicago's Cook County.
The county with more museums per capita is San Juan County in Washington state, followed by Marshall County in Kansas.
In low population density areas, many of these institutions, particularly in small towns and rural areas, are historical societies and history museums. Source: Washington Post.
As you can see on the map, most of the museums are related to history or preserving our past.
To learn more about museums in the U.S. Amazon has Riches, Rivals, and Radicals: A History of Museums in the United States (American Alliance of Museums). This book is of great value to museum lovers who want to learn the stories behind how and why these institutions have evolved since the day the first mastodon bones, royal portraits and botanical specimens entered their halls.
Resources for Map of Museums in the U.S.
The data was downloaded from the GeoNames and from Kaggle.
Data cleaning was done with Pandas Python.
The Shapefiles for this map were downloaded from Natural Earth.
If you see your favorite Museum missing, email me, I will include it!
Made by Luz K. Molina with D3.js.
