British Museum is the most visited UK attraction again

The British Museum was the UK's most popular visitor attraction in 2012 - the sixth year running it has been so.

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva) said the London venue attracted 5.6 million visitors.

Artist Damien Hirst's retrospective contributed to a 9% rise in Tate Modern visitors, which had 5.3 million.

Despite bad weather and the Olympics, there was an overall 5.1% increase in visitors at all UK attractions, from 87.7 million in 2011 to 92.1 million.

Visitors were briefly deterred from central London during the games, but Alva director Bernard Donohue called the recovery "almost immediate".

At the British Museum, the exhibition curated by Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry, which explored the depths of the museum and showed 170 objects alongside 30 of his own creations, was in part responsible for helping it continue its reign as the most popular visitor attraction.

However its 5.6 million visitor figure was a 4.7% drop year-on-year.