The Circle Chart (), previously known as the Gaon Music Chart or the Gaon Chart (), tabulates the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in South Korea. Founded in 2010, it is produced by the

Korea Music Content Association The Korea Music Content Association (KMCA; ) is a non‐profit organization representing major music content producers and distributors in South Korea. History The KMCA was established on December 9, 2008, and registered with the Ministry of ...

and sponsored by South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

History

Gaon Chart was launched in February 2010 by the

, under the sponsorship of the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, with the aim to create a domestic national chart similar to the ''Billboard'' charts of the United States and the

Oricon charts , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in N ...

of Japan. The word ''gaon'', which means 'middle' or 'center' in Korean, was chosen to represent fairness and reliability. The chart started tracking sales from the beginning of that year. A small awards ceremony was held in conjunction with the launch ceremony on February 23, at the

Westin Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. , the Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline. History Wes ...

Chosun hotel in Seoul.

Girl group A girl group is a music act featuring two or more women in music, female singers who generally vocal harmony, harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female p ...

Girls' Generation Girls' Generation (), also known as SNSD, is a South Korean girl group formed by SM Entertainment. The group is composed of eight members: Taeyeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona, and Seohyun. Originally a nine-piec ...

was awarded the Top Artist of January,

boy band A boy band is a vocal group consisting of young male singers, usually in their Teenage, teenage years or in their twenties at the time of formation. Generally, boy bands perform love songs marketed towards girls and young women. Many boy bands ...

Super Junior Super Junior (; stylized in all caps), also known as SJ or SuJu, is a South Korean boy band. The group is composed of Leeteuk, Heechul, Yesung, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Siwon, Donghae, Ryeowook, and Kyuhyun. Han Geng, Kibum, and ...

won Best Album of 2009, and

Jo Kwon Jo Kwon ( born on August 28, 1989) is a South Korean singer, television host, actor, entertainer and the leader of South Korean boy band 2AM. He has starred in multiple musicals such as '' Jesus Christ Superstar'' playing the role of King He ...

and Ga-in's "We Fell In Love" won Best Weekly Mobile Ringtone. In February 2011, Gaon published online and offline album sales information for 2010, including a detailed breakdown of online chart data. This was the first time that offline album sales had been released since 2008 when the Music Industry Association of Korea stopped compiling data. On July 7, 2022, the Gaon Chart was rebranded as Circle Chart. A new Global K-pop Chart was introduced alongside the retention of existing charts. The

Gaon Chart Music Awards The Circle Chart Music Awards (), formerly known as the Gaon Chart Music Awards, is a major music awards ceremony that is presented annually in South Korea by the Korea Music Content Association primarily based on the commercial performance of t ...

were also rebranded to the Circle Chart Awards.

Music charts

Song charts

Album charts

Other music charts

Social charts

The

Circle Social Chart The Circle Social Chart (), formerly the Gaon Social Chart (), part of Circle Chart, is a weekly chart that ranks the top 50 most-popular South Korean musical artists according to data collected from the digital platforms YouTube, Mubeat, MyCelebs ...

is a weekly chart that ranks the top 50 most popular

K-pop K-pop (; an abbreviation of "Korean popular music") is a form of popular music originating in South Korea. It emerged in the 1990s as a form of youth subculture, with Korean musicians taking influence from Western Electronic dance music, danc ...

artists using data from

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, Mubeat, Higher, and Keytalk AI. The

Gaon Weibo Chart Gaon Weibo Chart, part of Gaon Chart, was a weekly chart that ranked the top 10 most popular K-pop groups and the top 30 most popular individual K-pop artists in China, using data from Weibo. This chart started the week of June 29, 2014. The artis ...

was a weekly chart that ranked the top 10 most popular K-pop groups and the top 30 most popular individual K-pop artists in China using data from

Weibo Weibo (), or Sina Weibo (), is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily ac ...

Certification

In April 2018, the Korea Music Content Association introduced

music recording certification Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music Sound recording and reproduction, recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video ...

s for albums, downloads and streaming. Album certifications are awarded based on shipment figures provided by record labels and distributors. Download and streaming certifications are awarded to songs based on online data provided by web-based music providers. Albums and songs released on or after January 1, 2018, are eligible for certification.

Album

Download

Streaming

Awards

Circle Chart Music Awards The Circle Chart Music Awards (), formerly known as the Gaon Chart Music Awards, is a major music awards ceremony that is presented annually in South Korea by the Korea Music Content Association primarily based on the commercial performance of t ...

References

Notes

External links

Circle Chart homepage

(Former) Gaon chart official homepage

KMCA official homepage
{{Music industry Internet properties established in 2010 Music organizations based in South Korea South Korean record charts