Where I live, there are only Mexican restaurants

There are no museums

There are only Mexican restaurants.

We're not quite the uncultured louts you make us out to be. Also, most of those museums are small local affairs with very limited hours.

@TectonicWafer Yeah! Eat it Euroscrubs!

@TheChief Oh, the irony...

Law of museums:
If it exists, there is a museum dedicated to it.

@EricTheRedAndWhite
Just like the law of the Internet:
If it exists, there's a porn of it.

It turns out that what the United States is really addicted to ... is KNOWLEDGE.

I thought that it would be the opposite! thankfully not!

I find this claim very dubious.

@Hinoron As a Canadian, I'm sure you're tripping over them too, though you might not have considered them eligible in the first place.

@Monty
Over museums? ...No not really, which is why I'm dubious.

I've thought it over, and I can call to mind a total of 4 museums in my tri-city area that I'm aware of (not that I've actually gone inside every one of them). I'm even including a tiny glassware art gallery/museum that's attached to a mall and is only the size of a small store... and you can buy the glassware if you're so inclined, so I think they're playing pretty loose with the term "museum".

Starbucks doesn't quite have the penetration in this area that Tim Hortens does but I have probably passed by about 10 of them. Probably double that number of MacDonalds. There are absolutely more than that, but like the museums, I'm just counting the ones I'm aware of.

So, with admittedly not having taking a full, accurate survey, locally I believe we have at least around 10x as many Starbucks and MacDonalds as museums.

@Hinoron As population density goes down, museum density goes up. Go out into the sticks and every one-horse town with more than 500 people, every old farm in good condition, etc is liable to have or be a "museum". Those that don't, probably have a book made documenting themselves instead.

kind of ironic seeing as america as a country is still an infant. not even 500 years old. and yet, 35000 museums.... compensating much?=? xD

@TheBrewer We just love learning so much . We also apparently really like old-timiness, as there are at least 75,000 antique stores in the US. I couldn't find any solid numbers, but this organization has a directory of at least that many. http://antiquesacrossamerica.net/ I can anecdotally attest to there being a ludicrous number of antique stores all throughout Michigan, especially in the northern LP.

@TheBrewer We may only be 200 years old but we did a lot during that time and we cover a large area.

There are fifty states, and each state has loads of towns, and each of those towns has its own local or regional history.

@PaxRomana now take that history and multiply by i dont know how many times for every single european country and scandinavian country.

@TheBrewer You are missing the point. The US is much more expansive than most other European Nations (US: 3.797 million square miles, UK: 94,058, France: 248,573, Denmark: 16,574, etc), meaning that there are many more region and towns and each of those towns has it's own local history. Additionally, the US has been at war for 93% of it's history and peoples brains get more excited by things like war and killing than about agricultural methods.

But I will concede that a lot of the museums in the US probably talk about things that happened in the local area before the US controlled that area or even existed, that other museums cover extremely small things, and that museums will sometimes have to really reach to explain how their area is related to the history they are covering.

For example there is a museum a mile's drive from my school devoted to a single Spanish conquistador who explored in that area in the 1500s. Within walking distance of that is another small museum devoted to a lighthouse that used to be operational in the 1800s.

@PaxRomana also, you have the museum of yarn........... enough said.

and saying people's brains get more excited by killing than agricultural tools is pure hogwash. if i had to choose between a museum of war and a museum of technology im going for technology all the way.

@TheBrewer well Technology and war go hand in hand you really can't talk about one with out the other.

@TheBrewer Here we also have the St. Louis Science center; guess what it's dedicated to! they have an agricultral exibit called Grow; it's pretty cool. They have chickens, Crops, a modern indoor section where they have bees and other stuff; so if you're ever in St.Louis i recomend you check it out. here's a tip; even though the science center is free; temporary exibits are expensive, as are suvineers and food.

@TheBrewer Gasp! Can I interest you in an intense discussion about how blacksmiths increasing nickle content by 0.02% and altering the angle by less than 3 degrees revolutionized the plow? Imagine the genius and daring it takes to not only alter the formula but to experiment with alternate angles to increase the depth of the digging without overloading the stress on the plow and work animal.

And if you link agriculture revolutions and technology, that is some of the more interesting stuff, especially for engineers. Plus rather less likely to maim fresh immigrants from europe who get paid a fish full of pennies to lose their arm in a newly designed combine when their rent and food costs is twice that.

I'm glad to hear that.

I know of a museum of canoes and kayaks here in town. That's besides the Science and industry museum, the National Hat museum, the submarine that's a museum, the paddleboat that's a museum of maritime history, the Peculiarium and Museum of sci fi relics, historical oddities, and urban legends, the Zymoglyphic Museum which I can't quite grok, the air museum (not the one with the Spruce Goose, that one's a ways out of town), the vintage tech museum, and a slew of art museums and local history (sometimes very local) museums.

Just to give some perspective, Whittier, Alaska, is known as, "The Town Under One Roof." As of the last census, the population of the town was 220.

They have a museum. The one exhibit which I recall was the old patch cord telephone switch that used to service the building. I get the feeling that on some cold winter day when there was nothing else to do, someone ran across the room where a bunch of stuff had been stored and said, "Hey let's clean the place up and stick a Museum sign outside the door." I would not be surprised if the apartment sized museum actually was the old telephone switch room.

Yeah...there are about six Civil War museums in the St. Louis area alone. I mean, seriously. I'm not kidding. And down in the country? MORE. 90% of them are dedicated to the Civil War. I don't know why. That embarrasses me. We literally fought ourselves. That was the dumbest war ever. At least it ended slavery. Still didn't give my people back their land though. Stupid colonists. Go back to Europe! Let us handle our country. I'm Native American, so I was here first! Go away, white people! We can handle this. And get rid of all the museums and McDonald's while we're at it. Go back to deer and buffalo. Yum. Seriously, deer meat...fresh deer meat...best. Meat. Ever.

@Zealian It wasn’t the stupidest war ever; the stupidest war ever would be the one where Missouri, and Iowa fought over trees on one side of the boarder being cut down! Or the Emu War! Where Australia declared war on Emus...and lost! Or the Iraq war, which was pointless; oh right it did have a point,oil! The point is when you say something is the stupidest thing, there’s always something stupider. Like one time I thought Russian Roulette by itself was bad. Then I found out about a bunch of drunk guys playing it, with a landmine...

P.S. it’s kinda too late to get us out... many of us have Native American ancestry ourselves(including yours truly).

@Bluesamurai Have you ever tried fighting an emu? dastardly creatures.

@Zealian Please tell me your making a Native American Donald Trump joke. That's what I'm reading and if so well played.

sauce https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/13/there-are-more-museums-in-the-us-than-there-are-starbucks-and-mcdonalds-combined/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.518b0444a639

Now the US is a giant country but...I just have a hard time believing this.Not because of the stereotype of the "Fat fast food loving american" but just because making a museum takes a lot more resources,money,bureaucracy not to mention trained staff to handle everything and attracting enough people to keep it running.While a fast food is one of the most common types of business we see these days.
I'm very curios what counts as a museum in the US?Because if is those "Largest //insert object here//" type of things,I really don't think it should count,since its really just a quirky thing specific to the states with no real historical or artistic value.

@Lostdaydreams Americans are VERY proud of their history, however little of it they may have, so a tiny town with just 300 people in it may make a museum about that one time Lincoln passed through and their local history. They wouldn't be what we imagine as Museums i.e. big buildings with millions of £/$/€ spent on them with meticulously curated exhibits, but they are classified as museums. I'm always in support of the pursuit of knowledge though so here's to them I guess

@Lostdaydreams

A zillion museums are dedicated to the Civil War alone. At least in Missouri. Apparently, Missourians are proud of their "meh" status during the Civil War. Missourians weren't Confederate OR Union. We were just...there.

We honestly need more museums dedicated to the real americans. My people. The Native Americans. We were here first, and yet no one seems to give a crap. Oh well. At least I still get to smoke peyote legally and no one can say anything. I guess that makes up for the white people stealing our land.

@Zealian The "Meh" status,oh God that made me laugh like an idiot :'D !

Wait are there really none : O ?Huh...For a country that loves to make museums out of the smallest stuff you would think a culture that revolves around spirituality so much would be more than fascinaing enough to make places dedicated to them alone...I mean I'm east European,I have pretty much nothing to do with the US,yet I love to hear some cultural facts about the native tribes lives pre colonization times.I know I would like to see a museum like that for sure.
And really?How come you get away with that?

@Lostdaydreams For stuff like that you have to go to a REAL museum, the big stuffy kind with real exhibits and research. Or perhaps a university.

@Lostdaydreams TL/DR, every little town has its own little museum about how mr whatshisname first built a homestead here out of sod and tears, pioneer worship pioneer worship please buy a souvenir spoon! They're not really museums, they're tourist traps. I'm sure you have them by the millions, and just didn't think they counted.

Also, the technological lag of the homestead rush left behind a generation of artifacts which look a century out of place.

@Monty Haha yeah we have stuff like "Here used to live a great writter of this country" type houses or other similar things that just hoard some old speicific stuff that call themselves museums.But I never consider them museums,just at best a conservation act or a memorial house.
A museum has proper conservation methods,has experts to analyse how real the objects are,are officially accepted by the state and get funds,they do trades with other museums etc.
So hence my skepticism towards that info.Since even if the US is big,its not really an accient country known for its history and cultural avangard that could afford or even have the exhibits necesary to outnumber fast food/coffee house chains.
But I guess this is were the subjective part comes in for what makes something a real museum or not?

@Lostdaydreams "Memorial House" is a perfect phrase and I wish these tiny places would use it here.

I'll have to ask what qualifies as a museum?

We don’t have a museum... We do however have a park dedicated to a guy named William Jennings Bryan.

What about museums that are also fast food places? How are they counted, and if they don't exist then how much money would I need to start one?

@Noah0x81 Never heard of one, but I kind of like the concept. Would it serve dinosaur burgers? Historical recipes? Really, really old fast food?

@notabloodyunicorn Maybe all of the above? Maybe you could get a toy with every kids meal, but the toy is some historical artifact that they stole from another museum. Or maybe it's a museum about fast food places that also serves fast food. Or maybe it's a fast food place that has a history museum theme.