Visitors enjoy Liaocang, a museum that specializes in digital exhibits, in Beijing on Sunday. Revamped from a warehouse in Shougang Park, the show illustrates the culture and history of the capital's Yongding River using immersive and augmented reality technologies. [Photo/Xinhua]

China marked the 47th International Museum Day on Thursday with plenty of activities and displays of the latest achievements in the industry.

According to statistics released by the National Cultural Heritage Administration on Thursday, 382 new museums were registered in China last year, bringing the total number of registered museums across the nation to 6,565 as of the end of last year. More than 90 percent of them have free admission.

Last year, more than 34,000 exhibitions and nearly 230,000 educational activities were held in museums across the country, and some 578 million museum visits were made. There were also nearly 10,000 online exhibitions and more than 40,000 educational activities in China, altogether attracting over 1 billion online views.

International Museum Day was launched by the International Council of Museums in 1977. Since China joined the council in 1983, it has organized activities related to International Museum Day each year. Every year since 2009, China has chosen a major venue as the center of nationwide activities celebrating the day.

Fujian Museum in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, was the main venue for commemorative activities in the country this year, where highlighted exhibitions, forums on the sustainability of museums and the training of young talent, book launches and other activities were held.

Li Qun, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said at the celebration ceremony that Chinese museums should pay greater attention to building museums more systematically — establishing more types of museums, operated by more segments of society, and becoming more inclusive and accessible to common people — to contribute more to telling the story of China, and showing the origins, development path and achievements of Chinese civilization.

This year's theme for the day was "Museums, Sustainability and Well-being".

"It demonstrates the resolution to make our professional contribution to implement the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and to make a better world for human civilization," ICOM President Emma Nardi said in her video message to the event in Fuzhou.

"Through the past years, our world has taken on difficult challenges. Museums, as trusted institutions and important threads in our shared social fabric, are more than ever compelled to fulfill our duties to tackle pressing environmental and social issues to help the physical and psychological well-being, not only of people around us, but also our fellows from afar," she said.

The exhibition Good Fortune Sails Across the World: The Cultural Hallmarks of the Maritime Silk Road, opened at Fujian Museum on Thursday.

Numerous activities, including special exhibitions, lectures, the release of new cultural souvenirs, and voluntary services were also held across China on Thursday.

In Beijing, a blue paper on the development of the city's museums, including public education, exhibition organization and academic research from 2021 to 2022 was released on Thursday.

The Palace Museum in Beijing, also known as the Forbidden City, announced it released high-definition pictures of more than 20,000 cultural relics in its inventory for public access as its latest achievement in digitization.