The National Museum of Korea welcomed 3.8 million visitors in the first half of 2026, up nearly 40 percent from a year earlier and already exceeding its total attendance for all of 2024, according to data released Tuesday.
Foreign visitors have been a major driver of the increase. Nearly 165,400 overseas tourists visited the museum during the first six months of the year, up 68.8 percent from a year earlier, reflecting growing international interest in Korean culture beyond K-pop and television dramas.
Attendance has remained strong throughout the year. Monthly visitors exceeded 700,000 during the winter school holidays and again in May, while another 536,000 people visited in June. With South Korea's summer vacation season approaching, officials expect visitor numbers to climb further.
Recent special exhibitions have also helped attract crowds, including The Korean Table: Food, Nature, and Life, which explores the roots of Korean culinary culture, and Amazing Thailand: Masterpieces of Thai Art, the first major exhibition in Korea showcasing Thailand's history and artistic heritage.
If current trends continue, annual attendance is expected to exceed 6 million for a second consecutive year after crossing that threshold for the first time in 2025. It could even top 7 million, a figure that would rank second worldwide under The Art Newspaper's 2025 global museum attendance survey.
The surge, however, is straining the institution's facilities. The museum averaged about 17,000 visitors a day in June, well above its estimated daily capacity of 15,000.
To ease congestion, the museum recently raised parking fees on weekends and public holidays. Experts have also renewed calls to expand exhibition space as visitor numbers continue to outgrow the existing facilities.
Director general of the museum Yu Hong-june has previously proposed constructing a second permanent exhibition building and expanding the museum's management structure, saying peak-season attendance can exceed 40,000 visitors a day.
To handle the summer rush, opening hours will be extended from July 27 through Aug. 17. During that period, the museum will operate from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., one hour longer than usual, while Wednesday and Saturday evening hours until 9 p.m. will remain unchanged.
It will also reduce privately run guided tours from seven sessions a day to five to better manage visitor traffic.
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