Hadrian exhibition: Historic year for British Museum as 6m make it favourite UK cultural attraction

The British Museum has had its most successful year since it started counting visitors - and probably since its foundation in 1753. In the financial year 2007-08, a record 6 million people came through the doors, including 35,000 who visited on a single day to celebrate the Chinese new year.

The museum's director, Neil MacGregor, said: "We had to shut the main gates on Great Russell Street to prevent more people from coming in. It was the first time we did that since the Chartist riots of 1848 - although on that occasion the staff were actually on the roof, armed with stones."

The 6.049 million total number of visitors - up by more than a million on the previous year - means that the museum beat Tate Modern to become the most visited cultural attraction in the UK.

It is a measure of this success that MacGregor was headhunted to become director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, following the announcement of the retirement of Philippe de Montebello, in January.

However, MacGregor, 62, announced yesterday that he had signed a contract to run the British Museum for a further five years. This will take his tenure up to the Olympic year of 2012 - and means he should see through the redevelopment of the north-west corner of the museum into new galleries for large temporary exhibitions.

"I had conversations with the Met," he said, "but on the basis that I was going to stay here. I had conversations with them about what their future plans might be - but not as a candidate. I made that clear from the start."

MacGregor said his desire to stay at the helm of the museum came from the idea that "the opportunities and challenges for a world collection in London are limitless - greater than anywhere else in the world. There are very few other places, if anywhere, that you can look at 20th century American prints, and ancient Chinese art, and statues of Hadrian, in one building. And the Met is not a public museum - whereas the British Museum is a public institution and the public museums of London have always been free to everyone."