The British Museum is the first national public museum of the world. The British Museum was founded in 1753 and opened its doors in 1759. The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, England, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. It was the first national museum to cover all fields of human knowledge, open to visitors from across the world. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely collected during the era of the British Empire.