Museums are one of the most interesting and best places to visit. Visiting museums help a person understand history and the diverse cultures around the world from prehistoric, ancient to modern times.

Here’s a list of the best museum in the world that can provide a better grasps of understanding world history and appreciation of arts from ancient to modern period.

1. Kunsthistorisches Museum – Vienna, Austria

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (English: “Museum of Art History”) in Vienna, is one of the premier museums of fine arts and decorative arts in the world. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. The building is rectangular in shape, and topped with a dome that is 60 meters high. The inside of the building is lavishly decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf, and paintings, making it a spectacular work of art in its own right.

2. The State Tretyakov Gallery – Moscow, Russia

The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, is the national treasury of Russian fine art and one of the greatest museums in the world. The Gallery's collection consists entirely of Russian art and artists who have made а contribution to the history of Russian art or been closely connected with it. The collection contains more than 130,000 works of painting, sculpture and graphics, created throughout the centuries by successive generations of Russian artists. Russian art works on display ranging in date from the 11th to the early 20th century.

3. The Hermitage St. Petersburg - Moscow, Russia

Hermitage collections of works of art (over 3,000,000 items) present the development of the world culture and art from the Stone Age to the 20th century. With the possible exception of the Louvre, there is no museum in the world that rivals the Hermitage in size and quality. Its collection is so large that it would take years to view it in its entirety.

The museum is especially strong in Italian Renaissance and French Impressionist paintings, as well as possessing outstanding collections of works by Rembrandt, Picasso, and Matisse. Visitors should also take advantage of its excellent Greek and Roman antiquities collection and its exhibits of Siberian and Central Asian art. Not least among the attractions of the Hermitage is the museum itself, with its fine interior decoration and architectural detail.

4. The Vatican Museum, Vatican City

The Vatican Museums are among the greatest museums in the world. They are the public art and sculpture museums in the Vatican City which display works from the extensive collection of the Roman Catholic Church. The Sistine Chapel and the Stanze Della Segnatura decorated by Raphael are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums. They are continuously visited by millions of every year.

5. The Uffizi Gallery- Florence, Italy

The Uffizi Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi), one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world, is housed in the Palazzo degli Uffizi, a palazzo in Florence, Italy. The collection of works in the Uffizi Gallery cannot be compared to any other world collection and is probably the only one to have just masterpieces of exceptional value.

6. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Netherlands

With close on one million objects, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is the largest museum of art and history in the Netherlands. It is perhaps best known for its collection of 17th-century Dutch masters, with twenty Rembrandts and many other highlights of the period, including works by Vermeer, Frans Hals and Jan Steen.

7. The Museo Del Prado – Madrid, Spain

The Prado Museum is renowned as being the largest art gallery in the world. It also exhibits sculptures, drawings, coins and other works of arts, but it is undoubtedly its large collection of paintings which has given it fame worldwide. It houses more than 8,600 paintings, of which they exhibit less than 2,000 because of lack of space available. Many museums throughout the world have less artistic riches in their halls than the Prado Museum has in storage.

8. The Palace Museum, Beijing, China

Located in the center of Beijing, the Palace Museum, historically and artistically one of the most comprehensive museums in China. It was established on the basis of the Forbidden City, a palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1840), and their collection of treasures.

9. The National Museum of Natural History – Washington D.C., USA

The National Museum of Natural History is a museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located in Washington D.C. The museum’s collections total over 125 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts. It is the second most popular of all of the Smithsonian museums and is also home to about 185 professional natural history scientist — the largest group of scientists dedicated to the study of the natural and cultural history in the world.

10. Louvre – Paris France

Louvre, located in Paris, France, is one of the world’s largest palaces. It exemplifies traditional French architecture since the Renaissance, and it houses a magnificent collection of ancient and Western art. It is one of the most visited art museums in the world. The collection contains nearly 35,000 pieces displayed over the structure’s 60,000 square meters (650,000 sq ft). Louvre houses some of the world's most famous works of art, like Da Vinci's Mona Lisa; Jacques Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii; Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People; and Alejandro of Antioch’s Venus de Milo.

11. The Center Pompidou- Paris, France

It was constructed from 1971 to 1977 and known as the Pompidou Center in English. It is named after Georges Pompidou, who was president of France from 1969 to 1974, and was opened in 1977. It houses one of the most important museums in the world, featuring the leading collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, a vast public reference library with facilities for over 2,000 readers, general documentation on 20th century art, a cinema and performance halls, a music research institute, educational activity areas, bookshops, a restaurant and a café.

12. Tate Modern- London, United Kingdom

The group known simply as Tate are; the Tate Modern in London, Britain’s national museum of international modern Arts, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St. Ives, and Tate Online. Tate Modern displays the Tate collection of international modern and contemporary art from 1900 to the present day. Tate Modern is more than just an art gallery. The amazing space of the Turbine Hall - has housed a succession of installations which have caught the imagination of the public. The museum opened only in 2000 but has become a destination for Londoners and tourists. Entry to collection displays and some temporary exhibitions is fre

13. British Museum - UK

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections of more than 13 million objects which are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. It was established in 1753. The museum first opened to the public in 1759. The British Museum was unique because it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national library in the same building. And like all other national museums and art galleries in Britain, the Museum charges no admission fee.

14. Metropolitan Museum of Arts – New York City, NY, USA

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located in New York City. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in 1872. The Thomas J. Watson Library is the central research library of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its collection of books and periodicals relating to the history of art is one of the most comprehensive in the world.

15. National Air and Space Museum – Washington D.C., USA

The National Air and Space Museum has more than 30,000 aviation and 9,000 space artifacts in its collection. The National Air and Space Museum is widely considered as one of Washington’s most significant works of modern architecture. The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington. D.C., USA, and is the most popular of the Smithsonian museums. The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum network.

It maintains the largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It is also a vital center for research into the history, science, and technology of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all space and aircraft on display are originals or backup crafts to the originals.

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