The Louvre Museum, located in Paris, France, is one of the world's most visited art museums, a historic monument, and a national symbol. Being the world's largest museum and one of the world's greatest art collections in the world, the collection's more than 380,000 objects and nearly 35,000 works of art are displayed over 60,000 square meters (650,000 sq ft). The museum lies between the River Seine and the Rue de Rivoli on the Right Bank. A central landmark in Paris, the Louvre is slightly askew of the axe historique, a roughly eight-kilometer (five-mile) architectural line bisecting the city. The Louvre's collection is overwhelming in size and it includes paitings, drawings, sculptures, antiquities, furniture, coins etc.

The museum’s collections are distributed into 7 departments: Oriental antiques, Egyptian antiques, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiques; Paintings, Sculptures and Objets d'Art from the Middle Ages to 1850. Still in its development stage, the Grand Louvre project shall only be totally finished in 1997. There are many entrances to the museum, not only the one through Pyramid which is always the most crowded.

The Musée du Louvre’s exhibition space, dedicated to the permanent collection, is more than 60,600 square meters (652,000 sq ft). According to the 2005 annual report, the collection's 11,900 Western paintings constitute the second largest after the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. 6,000 paintings are on permanent display, and 5,900 are in storage. Besides paintings, the Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, and archaeological finds. Oversight is carried out by 2,000 employees who are led by Director Henri Loyrette.