Best Museums in United States
United States is home to 24 world-class museums across 10 cities, from ancient art and archaeology to modern and contemporary collections.
All Museums in United States
New York City
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The largest art museum in the Americas with over two million works.
Founded 1870
New York City
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world.
Founded 1929
New York City
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Frank Lloyd Wright's spiralling concrete landmark on Fifth Avenue, dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
Founded 1939
New York City
Whitney Museum of American Art
Renzo Piano's airy meatpacking-district landmark devoted to twentieth and twenty-first century American art.
Founded 1930
New York City
The Frick Collection
Industrialist Henry Clay Frick's Old-Master collection in his former Fifth Avenue mansion.
Founded 1935
New York City
Brooklyn Museum
One of the oldest and largest art museums in the country, with an outstanding Egyptian collection and major American art.
Founded 1895
New York City
American Museum of Natural History
One of the world's preeminent natural history museums, beside Central Park on the Upper West Side.
Founded 1869
New York City
The Morgan Library & Museum
J. P. Morgan's personal library and collection of manuscripts, rare books, and Old-Master drawings.
Founded 1924
Free Entry
Washington D.C.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
A museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.
Founded 1829
Free Entry
Washington D.C.
National Gallery of Art
The United States' national art museum on the National Mall, displaying works from the Middle Ages to the present and the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Americas.
Founded 1937
Free Entry
Washington D.C.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
One of the world's great natural history museums, home to the Hope Diamond and more than 145 million scientific specimens. Free entry.
Founded 1910
Free Entry
Washington D.C.
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
The most visited museum in the United States, housing the Wright Flyer, Apollo 11 command module, and Space Shuttle Discovery. Free entry.
Founded 1946
Free Entry
Washington D.C.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Home to the original Star-Spangled Banner, Abraham Lincoln's top hat, and three million objects that tell the story of America. Free entry.
Founded 1964
Free Entry
Washington D.C.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
America's official memorial institution to the Holocaust, with permanent and special exhibitions documenting history's most documented genocide. Free entry.
Founded 1993
Free Entry
Los Angeles
The J. Paul Getty Museum
An art museum in California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
Founded 1954
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The largest art museum in the western United States, currently rebuilding around Peter Zumthor's new pavilion.
Founded 1961
Free Entry
Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
One of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States, located in Chicago's Grant Park and famed for its Impressionist and American collections.
Founded 1879
Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
One of the largest museums in the United States, with comprehensive collections from the ancient world to today.
Founded 1870
Free Entry
Boston
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
A Venetian palazzo in Boston, built by Isabella Stewart Gardner around her extraordinary personal art collection — and the site of the largest unsolved art theft in history.
Founded 1903
Philadelphia
Philadelphia Museum of Art
A neoclassical landmark above the Schuylkill River, immortalised by Rocky's run up its 72 steps.
Founded 1876
Free Entry
San Francisco
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The West Coast's leading modern and contemporary art museum, with one of the world's great photography collections and a landmark Snøhetta-expanded building.
Founded 1935
Free Entry
Denver
Denver Art Museum
A distinctive landmark in the Rocky Mountain West with one of the largest Native American art collections in the country and a striking Daniel Libeskind building.
Founded 1893
Free Entry
Houston
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
The largest art museum in the southern United States and one of the ten largest in the country, with outstanding Latin American and Impressionist collections.
Founded 1900
Free Entry
Bentonville
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
A remarkable museum of American art set in the Ozark forest, built over natural springs — with free permanent collection admission and one of the strongest American art collections assembled in the 21st century.
Founded 2011