Boosted by 'KPop Demon Hunters,' museum gift shop merch, cumulative visitors have reached 100 million since its opening in 1945
The number of visitors to the National Museum of Korea is expected to surpass 6 million this year for the first time since it opened in 1945.
The museum said Wednesday that as of Nov. 30, it had recorded 5,814,265 visitors so far this year. At the current pace, total attendance is likely to exceed 6 million as early as next week.
It would be the first time the museum has reached that milestone since its founding on Dec. 3, 1945, making it the highest annual attendance in its 80-year history.
Cumulative visitors over the past eight decades now stand at just over 100 million. Since its opening, the museum said, annual visitors have increased 46-fold, its collection has grown ninefold and its facilities have expanded 21 times in size.
Museum officials credited the steady growth to decades of development, saying the institution has established itself among the world’s top five museums and as a central hub of Korean culture.
According to figures from the British art publication The Art Newspaper, the most visited museum in the world in 2024 was the Louvre Museum with 8.74 million visitors, followed by the Vatican Museums with 6.83 million, the British Museum with 6.48 million and the Metropolitan Museum of Art with 5.73 million.
The surge in visitors is widely seen as part of the global boom in interest in Korean culture, amplified by the popularity of the Netflix animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” and the growing craze for the museum’s branded merchandise line, MU:DS.
At the height of the film’s popularity, merchandise tied to its imagery, including a tiger-and-magpie badge closely resembling the film’s Derpy and the three-eyed magpie, a playful nod to the traditional pairing found in Joseon-era minhwa folk paintings, and the traditional gat worn by the fictional Saja Boys, sold out almost immediately, sparking buying frenzies.
The MU:DS line had already enjoyed steady popularity, including a miniature replica of the pensive bodhisattva statue known to be owned by RM of BTS. According to the National Museum Foundation’s latest report issued on Oct. 31, sales of MU:DS products from January through October totaled an estimated 30.64 billion won.
hwangdh@heraldcorp.com
