Patna’s Bihar Museum has ranked ninth in the 2026 list of the world’s 100 best museums, placing it ahead of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre in Paris. The ranking, published by Germany-based travel guide Worth a Journey, makes the Bihar Museum the highest-ranked museum in Asia and the only Indian institution on this year’s list.
The Bihar Museum sits one place ahead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which ranks tenth, while the Louvre is placed 31st. Mexico City’s Museo Nacional de Antropologia leads the list, followed by Madrid’s Museo del Prado in second place and Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in third. The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg ranks fourth and Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum fifth.
Turkey’s Sanliurfa Archaeology Museum is sixth, followed by the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, Poland, in seventh place and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans in eighth. The Bihar Museum’s ninth-place finish puts a museum from Bihar’s capital among institutions that draw millions of visitors a year in Europe and North America, and it has drawn attention to the state’s cultural holdings well beyond India.
How the Bihar Museum ranking was compiled
Worth a Journey, an independent travel guide based in Munich, compiled the ranking using visitor reviews, data analysis and on-site assessments. The publisher said its 2026 selection drew on an analysis of more than one million venues across 142 countries to compile 36 lists of the world’s 100 best places, and that it does not accept nominations, applications or payments for inclusion in its lists. The ranking therefore rests on visitor-experience data rather than on nominations or awards alone.
The list covers museums across disciplines, including history, art, science, technology and open-air heritage. According to the publisher, it is the highest-ranked among the 10 Asian museums included in its 2026 selection of the world’s 100 best museums. It is also the only Indian institution to feature on the list, a point that several Indian reports on the ranking have noted since the list appeared.
What visitors find at the Bihar Museum
The Bihar Museum opened in 2015 on Bailey Road in Patna, built to house historical artefacts that had earlier been kept at the older Patna Museum. Its galleries hold artefacts, coins, manuscripts and regional folk art, along with a children’s gallery. Among its best known exhibits is the Mauryan-era Didarganj Yakshi, a sculpture discovered in 1917 that has become closely identified with the museum.
The building was designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki with Mumbai firm Opolis Architects, and its modern galleries present Bihar’s history from ancient times through the present day. The museum remains open from Tuesday to Sunday and is closed on Mondays, with galleries open from 10 am to 5 pm. Adult entry costs Rs 100, and visitors are advised to check the museum’s official website for the latest ticket prices and visiting information before planning a trip.
Bihar Museum recognition and what comes next
The ranking arrived in a week when Bihar’s cultural profile was already in the news, and reports of the ninth-place finish spread quickly through Indian media. For Patna, the recognition gives the city a place on an international cultural itinerary that is usually led by Paris, London, New York and Madrid. Tour operators and travel writers in India have pointed to the ranking as another reason for travellers to include Patna in their plans, alongside the city’s older sites and its position on the Ganga.
The museum has not announced any change to its hours or ticket prices following the ranking. Its galleries continue to operate on their regular schedule, and the institution remains the only Indian museum on Worth a Journey’s 2026 list. The next edition of the list will show whether other Indian museums join it, but for this year the Bihar Museum stands alone as the country’s representative among the world’s 100 best museums.