The British Museum

The British Museum is a free, public museum of human history, art, and culture that is situated in London's Bloomsbury neighborhood. Its eight-million-piece permanent collection is one of the biggest and most complete ones ever assembled. The history of human civilization, from its inception to the present, is chronicled. The British Museum was the first national museum that was open to the public and included every branch of study. The Anglo-Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane's collections served as the foundation for the museum's founding in 1753. On the location of the present structure, in Montagu House, it initially welcomed guests in 1759.

The Natural History Museum was the first of several branch institutions or independent spin-offs created as a consequence of the museum's development during the next 250 years, which was primarily a result of British colonization. The British Library was split from the British Museum by the British Library Act of 1972 in 1973, however the British Library remained housed in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997.

Like other national museums in the UK, the museum is a non-departmental public organization supported by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. It does not charge admission, with the exception of loan exhibitions. With regard to a limited number of its most renowned foreign-origin artifacts, its ownership is in issue and the focus of ongoing international debate over repatriation demands, most notably in the cases of the Greek Elgin Marbles and the Egyptian Rosetta Stone.

Detailed information:

• Founded: 1819
• The British Museum: London, UK
• The British Museum Annual Visitors: 5.82 million