According to a museum working conference held in Beijing, there are more than 2,200 museums in China now and the annual visitors have exceeded 160 mln.

May 18 is the International Museum Day. The theme of the Day this year is "Museums bridging cultures". As the reporter learned from a museum working conference held in Beijing there are more than 2,200 museums in China now. The annual visitors have exceeded 160 mln.

According to Zhang Wenbin, president of China Museum Institute, the earliest museum established by Chinese is the Nantong Museum, founded by Zhang Qian, a noted industrialist and scholar in late Qing dynasty.

The Report of the national economy and the social development released in past 25 years help people get better understanding of rapid growth of museums. Museum number was not accounted in the report of 1979. In 1980, the report said there were 365 museums in China. The number jumped to 1,012 ten years later. By the end of last century, the museum number in China increased to 1,373. According to the Report of the national economy and the social development 2004 the museum number reached 1,509 in China.

Editor: Wing