The Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, is likely to receive more visitors this year than was previously expected, the China News Service reported on Tuesday.

As the most popular tourist site in Beijing, the museum has tried hard to keep the number below 15 million annually over the past years. However, by the end of last month, it had already received more than 12 million visitors.

"It's very likely that we will exceed the cap of 15 million visitors this year," the museum's director Shan Jixiang said.

Last year, the museum set a limit on the number of daily visitors. No more than 80,000 people were allowed to enter the museum per day to help alleviate the problem of overwhelming crowds during the peak tourist season.

As for why there is still a significant rise in annual visitor inflow, Shan explained that after the announcement last year, more people chose to visit the museum in the low season, so despite the rise in total number, "there are no large crowds in the Forbidden City anymore."

The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. It is also the most visited museum in the world based on an attendance survey from 2014 compiled by The Art Newspaper.

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