Museums hold large collections of items relating to their subject, building some of the largest complexes in the world in order to store and exhibit the collection in a controlled atmosphere.
The world's most important museums have also engaged in various expansion projects through the years, expanding their total exhibition space.
[1] The following is a list of museums ranked according to their floor area where published by reliable sources.
Only museums with more than 20,000 square meters (220,000 sq ft) of floor space are included.
Entries are not ranked as large museums that do not have reliably-sourced statistics may be omitted; this is not necessarily a complete list.