The seventh annual Museum Night, which was held on Friday evening in 180 institutions in 80 cities and towns throughout Croatia, attracted a record 325,000 visitors.

The highest number of visitors, 160,000, were registered in the capital of Zagreb with the Museum of Contemporary Arts being at the top of the list with 16,000 guests. As many as 13,500 people visited the Technical Museum.

This year, the event with free admission to museums, galleries and similar institutions was organised in 20 more locations and in 13 more towns than last year.

According to the Croatian Museum Association, the 27 January 2012 Museum Night attracted 39,000 visitors to museums in Split, 26,000 in Rijeka, 22,000 in Zadar and 13,000 in Osijek. The other cities and towns reported numbers of attendees below 10,000.

The admission to museums, galleries and archives was free from 6 pm on Friday to 1 am on Saturday and many of them offered additional entertainment programmes, such as concerts, film screenings, meetings with artists, plays or workshops and other events.

The Croatian Museum Association's (HMD) representatives told the press on Saturday that the association was impressed by figures.

According to a recent opinion poll which the HMD conducted via Facebook, as many as 80 percent of the respondents said that quality and attractiveness of the programmes rather than free tickets were the reason for visiting museums during Museum Night.

The first edition of the Museum Night was held in six museums in Zagreb in 2005. Last year's Museum Night saw 314,659 visitors flocking to 160 locations in 67 towns.