The graph illustrates attendance figures, in thousands, for five categories of museums, including Art, Science, Culture, Natural History, and History in the UK over a twenty-years period spanning from 1999 to 2019.
Overall, visitor numbers for the most types of museums trended predominantly upwards, excepting History and Cultural Museums. Throughout the period, Science Museums consistently maintained their lead as the most popular attraction.
In the starting year, 1999, Art museums recorded the highest attendance at approximately 100,000 visitors. Following this, History and Science museums attracted a substantial number of visitors, at around 80,000 and 70,000 respectively. The least visited categories at this time were Cultural and Natural History museums, which registered figures of about 60,000 and 50,000.
Over the following two decades, Art museum attendance continued to climb, rising from 100,000 to 150,000. A more dramatic increase was observed in Science museums, where visitor numbers surged from 70,000 to 130,000, a trend which saw it surpass History museums in popularity by 2009. In stark contrast, both History and Culture museums experienced a decline, with their figures falling to approximately 65,000 and 45,000 respectively by 2019. Natural History museums were the only other category to see growth, albeit a slight one, from 50,000 to 60,000 visitors