According to a study by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage (DGPC), which was conducted based on visitor surveys, the MNC's visitors are made up of 77% foreigners, with 2% of this number representing foreigners who are resident in the country.

In all, 62 different nationalities visited the museum, with a third of visitors coming from France, while Spain, the United States and Brazil were the next top nationalities (10%, 7% and 5%, respectively).

Together, audiences from these four countries represent more than half of foreigners, according to the document.

As for Portuguese public "they represent 23% (and, of these, two percent live abroad), a figure well below all the museums participating in the study," adds the document to which Lusa agency had access.

Compared with other participating museums, the predominant social profile of the MNC's public is higher in terms of age (the mean is 46 years compared to 42 in the set), less educated (68% withpost-secondary, compared to 73% ) and less predominant in the professions of intellectual and scientific activities (51% against 61%).

In the MNC, foreign audiences are relatively more educated and professionally qualified than Portuguese visitors, the study said.

The National Museum Audience Survey (EPMN) is the first in the country to comprise a representative sample, with more than 13,000 validated questionnaires, more extensive in time - 12 months of information collection - and in the number of museums covered.

The study of the profile of the visitors of the MNC is 9th to be announced, having already been presented, among others, the National Museum of Ancient Art, the National Tile Museum, the National Museum of Archeology, and the National Museum of Soares dos Reis, in Porto.