As of 2020, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had 17 curatorial departments.
These departments organize the Met’s encyclopedic permanent collection by artistic tradition, region, medium, or historical period. They include areas such as Egyptian Art, Greek and Roman Art, Asian Art, European Paintings, Arms and Armor, Musical Instruments, and The Costume Institute.
The department structure allows curators and scholars to specialize while caring for collections spanning thousands of years and many cultures. The Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, for example, oversees medieval European material at both the main museum and the Fort Tryon Park branch. Other departments focus on photographs, drawings and prints, modern and contemporary art, or the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.
The number should be read as a historical snapshot because museums reorganize departments over time. It also should not be confused with conservation or scientific-research units, which support the collections but are not counted in the 17 curatorial departments. The Met’s collection itself contains far more objects than any single department can represent.