Nearly 6.9 million people visited Finland's museums last year, according to preliminary data from the Finnish Museum Agency.
There was a significant rise in visitor numbers in 2022, particularly given that some Covid restrictions on public gatherings were still in effect at the beginning of the year.
Around 2.5 million more people went to the country's museums last year, compared to 2021. However, 2022 did not reach the pre-pandemic peak of 2019, when museums drew 7.6 million visitors.
"After the Covid years people found their way back to museums more actively than we even dared to anticipate. For me, it particularly emphasised how meaningful visits to museums are, even in uncertain times — and how quickly we were able to react when restrictions were lifted," Pirjo Hamari, the agency's development director, said in a statement.
The most popular museums were located in the Finnish capital, including Helsinki City Museum (with 240,495 visits), Amos Rex (227,760), the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (222,697), the Natural History Museum (210,905) and the National Museum (181,088).
The agency said it will publish a finalised visitor statistics report in the summer.
