But despite a small overall increase in visitor numbers to all the sites, which counted to 124.4 million, ALVA admitted that terror fears and police operations had left some attractions suffering.
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The Victoria & Albert Museum in London welcomed almost 3.5 million members of the public, partly thanks to the 490,000 people who visited the blockbuster Alexander McQueen exhibition last summer.
VisitScotland chief executive Malcolm Roughead said: “These really are spectacular results for Scotland’s leading visitor attractions and it is wonderful to see this country performing above the United Kingdom average”.
The National Museum of Scotland was the most visited free attraction, with 1,567,319 visitors, and was the most visited museum outside of London.
Temporary exhibitions were credited with giving a boost in visitors to a number of attractions including London’s Somerset House, which saw the largest increase in visitor numbers in the top 10.
The statistics were released yesterday by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva).
Outside of London the most popular attraction was the Library of Birmingham while in Scotland, bragging rights went to Edinburgh Castle.
The National Museums of Scotland, including the National Museum of Scotland, National War Museum, National Museum of Rural Life and National Museum of Flight, saw a combined total of 2,338,240 visits.
The following made the top ten.
‘With other museums moving into the National Museum of the Royal Navy, such as the Royal Marines Museum next year, we can expect the museum to grow in strength and increase in the rankings of the UK’s most popular tourist sites’.
“We annually attract around 4.5 to five million visitors”.
Bernard Donoghue, director of ALVA, said: “2015 continued to be a record year mainly due to our members continuing to show how diverse the United Kingdom is to both domestic and overseas visitors”.
Every one of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions is in London, new figures show.
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In sharp contrast to the performance of Scotland’s main attractions, the Natural History Museum, the Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London all suffered a drop in visitors in 2015.
