Number of museums, visitors increase in Türkiye

ANKARA

The number of museums in Türkiye has increased by 5.1 percent in 2021, compared to 2020, and the number of visitors to the museums and ruins has skyrocketed by 69 percent in a year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) has announced.

In a report named “Cultural Heritage 2021” issued on Sept. 7, TÜİK declared that the number of museums in the country has reached 519.

“210 of the museums were affiliated with the Culture and Tourism Ministry, and 309 were in the category of private museums,” the institution said.

The number of ruins was 143, TÜİK added.

Following the end of the lockdowns and curfews due to the coronavirus pandemic, the museums and the ruins welcomed some 69 percent more visitors in 2021, compared to 2020.

“The number of visitors became around 23.2 million,” TÜİK said and added: “Some 71.6 percent of the visitors visited the museums and ruins affiliated to the ministry.”

“The number of paid visitors to museums and archaeological sites affiliated to the ministry was around 9.7 million.”

According to TÜİK, the number of visitors to private museums increased by 46.4 percent to some 6.6 million.

An income of 362.2 million Turkish Liras ($19.8 million) was obtained from the paid visits to museums and ruins affiliated to the ministry.

Also, the number of museum cards sold by the ministry reached 1.8 million in 2021.

There was also another increase in the number of works in the museums. The number of artificial and artistic works catalogued reached around 3.7 million with a slight 0.7 percent increase.

The numbers of the immovable cultural property and the national parks also faced significant rises in 2021.

The number of immovable cultural properties increased by 2.7 percent compared to the previous year and became a total of 119,253.

“The province with the most immovable cultural assets was Istanbul with a total of 32,854, followed by [the western province of] İzmir with a total of 7,754 and [the southwestern province of] Muğla with 4,778,” TÜİK stated.

The total number of protected areas also increased by 5.8 percent compared to the previous year and became 22,233. “96.8 percent of the sites were archaeological sites,” TÜİK added.

The number of national parks reached 46 in 2021 with an increase of 2.2 percent.

While the number of nature parks increased by 4 percent to 260, the area of the nature parks increased by 1.9 percent to a total of 109,638 hectares.

The number of nature reserves, which is 31, remained unchanged compared to the previous year. However, the number of natural monuments decreased by 0.9 percent to 114.

“The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic process experienced in 2020-21 was seen in the Cultural Heritage Statistics,” TÜİK commented.