Museum advisory institutions in Germany

Germany has sixteen federal states and there is nearly the same number of different ways of organising the museum advisory institutions. In some "Bundesländer" they are part of a state hold museum or a ministry, on others, for instance in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), the work is done by the Museum Association of this land. In addition there is the German Museum Association which works for whole Germany, and there are regional Museum Associations in every land. Our Institute cooperates with these institutions.

The term "museum" is not officially defined in Germany. Anybody who wishes to do so, may call its institution a museum. Because of the federal structure of Germany no single ministry is responsible for culture but instead we have sixteen ministries of culture, one each in every state. These ministries and also the museum bodies in the sixteen states define what is a museum in their region.