Talk:List of the most-visited attractions in the United Kingdom

2013 update

This list should be update with the visitor figures for 2013 [1]. – Editør (talk) 19:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Southbank Centre

@SiefkinDR: Should this be listed as a "most visited gallery"? Although it does have a gallery space within it, this is a relatively minor aspect of the entire venue - it doesn't even appear to be mentioned in the Southbank Centre article. Most visitors in the 2,947,155 figure will presumably be there for the live performances, cafe, bars, etc. Belbury (talk) 15:27, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh, hang on, it's including the Hayward Gallery. But I think the point still stands - you can't say that any part of the Southbank area is the fourth most visited museum/gallery in the UK. I'll see if I can find a standalone figure for Hayward Gallery visitors in 2022. Belbury (talk) 15:41, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Afraid I couldn't find anything. Belbury (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Statistics column

Thanks for your work on this. Would there be an advantage for clarity to have the year of the stats in a separate column, so just the visitor numbers are shown in their column? --Mervyn (talk) 09:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I've restored the under construction tag as it looks like this table is still in progress. But I'm not really sure how to continue working on something like this:

17	National Museum of the Royal Navy	Portsmouth	England	183,061 (2020)
18	Oxford University Museum of Natural History	Oxford	England	675,557 (2022)
20	Merseyside Maritime Museum	Liverpool	England	520,328 (2022)
21	National War Museum	Edinburgh	Scotland	699,178 (2022)
25	World Museum	Liverpool	England	672,120(2019)
26	Gallery of Modern Art	Glasgow	Scotland	318,620 (2022)
27	Museum of Science and Industry	Manchester	England	664,000 (2019)

Is the intention to sort by visitor count irrespective of year, but state the year, User:SiefkinDR? Or is the ranking order coming from somewhere else, with the visitor count just being the most recent specific value we have? --Belbury (talk) 10:32, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your constructive comments. I think we have to keep 2022 statistics clearly separate from previous years, since conditions were very different in each year. I only included 2021 numbers when I didn't have a current number; but they should be kept separate.

We have to leave enough space to the right of the columns for the column of photos of the top museums; they're really necessary for the article. But another option would be to include a small image of each museum in the listing, as the List of most-visited art museums does. What do you think?

Cordially, SiefkinDR (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Subject of the List

This article was intended to bé list of museums, and I believe it should include only museums. Zoos country houses, and parks Belong in a separate article (or articles) on Attractions. What do you think? SiefkinDR (talk) 15:44, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I think we should probably go where the data is, the previous version of this article did seem a bit stuck where we had mostly 2022 data but some 2019 data that either had to be integrated (which seems very hard to do accurately) or thrown away.

It does also solve some of the problems where we lack specific enough numbers, such as the Hayward Gallery mentioned above. Belbury (talk) 15:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

How about calling it “List of museums and attractions” and keeping them separate? That way people just looking for museums can find them.Cordially, SiefkinDR (talk) 16:10, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

The main table could have a column for "attraction type" if that seems useful. It's usually very clear from the title, though; I can already see at a glance in the new table that the Natural History Museum is the most popular museum in the UK, that the V&A slightly outranks the Science Museum, etc. Belbury (talk) 16:14, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Country column

@Chocolateediter: What does your edit summary of not going to mix county and city, counties and nations are of comparable population mean, when removing the country column?

I'm not sure which way to go on the columns, it's maybe useful to see at a glance how England compares to Scotland, and that Wales doesn't feature at all. But the table saying that the Riverside Museum and National War Museum are just in "Scotland", no city specified, isn't ideal. Belbury (talk) 17:50, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

If you add city to all, you'll find for example that Beamish doesn't have one. If you add England in a nation column you end up with a wall of cells with England in. I'm just going to split London and see if any Welsh ones come in. National War Museum works with the nation of Scotland next to it, the riverside one maybe not I'll add brackets.

Separating the nations will place lesser visited attractions where England ones with higher visits won't get a look in. Chocolateediter (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

The previous version of the article had columns for "Location" and "Country". I think the list is more usefully navigable like that. We're going to have a solid block of "Greater London" or "England" either way.

Not suggesting removing any content from the table, just questioning what columns would work best for it. Belbury (talk) 18:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the concern that England ones with higher visits won't get a look in is something to worry about. We aren't writing a brochure to be eye-catching, we're listing statistics.

The current format - where "outside London" is the first table and "London" the second - adds barriers to navigation. If I want to quickly see, for example, how the Scottish National Gallery compares to London's National Gallery, I have to keep a number in my head while I scroll down the page to compare it to another number. But if they're in the same table I can easily see them relative to each other. Belbury (talk) 16:45, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Topic of the Article

This article was begun as “most-visited museums in the United Kingdom.” Now the museums are buried among historic houses, zoos, parks, and historic sites, and the word ""museum" is not even in the title. Museums merit a separate article, as it was originally written, or at least a separate part in an article on “Most-visited museums and attractions in the United Kingdom." SiefkinDR (talk) 20:15, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Chester Zoo

With 1,848,634 visitors in 2022 (see p10) and 1,971,178 in 2023 (see p6) according to the Zoo's annual reports, Chester Zoo really ought to be on the list. 188.74.124.71 (talk) 13:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The alva.org.uk source that this article is using to compare attractions doesn't include Chester Zoo at all. I wonder if that's a sign that we should be using a better independent source, if it's only listing ALVA-registered organisations. Belbury (talk) 13:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed too that (e.g.) Madame Tussaud's in London (c. 2.3m visitors per year) and theme parks like Alton Towers (also c. 2.3m) are also missing. Yikes! 188.74.124.71 (talk) 14:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)