A History of the World in 100 Objects tour at the National Museum of China [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

The National Museum of China in Beijing was the world's most-visited museum in 2016, says an annual report on global attractions.

The report was released on June 1 by The Themed Entertainment Association, an international nonprofit organization and the economics practice at AECOM, a multinational engineering firm. The report has charted global museum trends for five years by listing top 20 best-attended museums worldwide and in different regions.

The National Museum of China tops the list for the first time, receiving 7.55 million people in 2016. That is an increase of 3.6 percent compared to 2015.

The report says three main factors contribute to the Beijing museum's large attendance: sheer population size of China, free admission to its most exhibitions and being in a major tourist-destination city.

The museum is located in the popular Tian'anmen Square area, right next to several tourist hot spots including the Palace Museum and Qianmen pedestrian street.

Washington's National Air and Space Museum comes in second. The Louvre, which garnered the top position on the 2015 list, ranks third. The Paris museum suffered a 14.9 percent drop because of a decline in tourism.

Shanghai Science and Technology Museum was the seventh-most visited museum in the world in 2016.

US and British museums each seized three spots in the top 10.

The Taipei Palace Museum is ranked 12 with an 11.8 percent decrease of attendance. The report says it is because of a decline in the number of visitors from the mainland.

The report doesn't chart Beijing's Palace Museum, which reports an attendance of more than 16 million visitors in 2016.