Palace Museum aims for world's top 5: official  

单霁翔：故宫博物院应成为世界五大博物馆之一

“英国大英博物馆、法国卢浮宫博物馆、美国大都会博物馆和俄国艾尔米塔什博物馆是公认的世界四大博物馆，但无论以任何标准进行评价，故宫博物院与之相比毫不逊色，故宫博物院应该成为世界五大博物馆之一。”北京故宫博物院院长单霁翔日前接受中新社记者独家专访，就此予以详细论述。

Beijing (CNS) – The Imperial Palace will be one of the top five museums in the world, along with the British Museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hermitage Museum, Shan Jixiang, director of the Imperial Palace, told CNS Monday.

Collections in European and American museums come from all over the world, while 80 percent of the collections at the Imperial Palace are passed down from the Qin Dynasty, Shan said, adding that the architecture of the Imperial Palace is the canonical representative of eastern architecture.

The Imperial Palace received more than 14 million visitors in 2011.