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List of best-selling albums in South Korea
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This is a list of the best-selling albums of recorded music in South Korea. To appear on the list, the figure must have been published by a reliable source and the album must have sold at least 1 million copies. The current record for best-selling album is held by South Korean boy band Seventeen's EP FML with 6.2 million copies sold globally,[5][6] followed by Seventeenth Heaven with 5.8 million copies sold in the same year (2023).[7]
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Kim Gun-mo's 1995 studio album Wrongful Meeting previously held the record as the best-selling South Korean album for 24 years, with an estimated 3.3 million copies sold—this includes figures based on illegal sales[8]—until it was surpassed by BTS' Map of the Soul: Persona in 2019.[9][10]
As of 2023, according to Circle Chart,[A] BTS was named the best-selling artist in South Korean history, having sold more than 40 million albums.[12]
The Korea Video & Record Distributors Association (KVRDA) published the first South Korean sales charts, tallying album sales figures for the month of August and the March–August semester, on September 10, 1998.[13] Between 1999 and 2007, the Music Industry Association of Korea (MIAK) published monthly charts, with fifty chart positions and detailed sales for each album.[14] Following the sharp decline of domestic music sales in the 21st century,[15] the Korea Music Content Association (KMCA) introduced the Gaon Album Chart in February 2010, which included a detailed breakdown of online chart data.[16] The KMCA began awarding sales certifications for albums in April 2018—only albums released after January 1, 2018 are eligible.[16] Certifications are not included in this list, because the Gaon Music Chart publishes detailed album sales.
All albums that have sold over one million copies in South Korea are by Korean artists, with the exception of Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard (1992), Mariah Carey's Music Box (1993) and NCT Wish's Poppop (2025).
BTS is the act with the most million-selling albums, having twelve, followed by Seventeen, with eleven. In 2017, BTS' Love Yourself: Her became the first album released since 2001 to sell over 1 million copies,[17][18] while in 2018 the band's Love Yourself: Answer became the first to sell over 2 million copies since 2000.[19] In 2019, the band's Map of the Soul: Persona became the first album to sell over 3 million copies since 1997. This was followed by Map of the Soul: 7, which became the first album in chart history to surpass 4 and 5 million sales, in 2020 and 2022 respectively.[20]
Seventeen's FML became the first album to sell over 6 million copies in Korean history,[21] while their following album Seventeenth Heaven also achieved significant sales success, exceeding 5 million copies in its first week of release, becoming the second best selling album in Korean history.[22]
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Legend
2 million or more copies
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1 million–1.9 million copies
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Best-selling album by year
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Sales of standard release and reissue albums in a year. This list does not include sales of the same album in other years apart from the specified calendar year. For a list of total sales, see sections above.
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Notes
- Estimated sales data is based on "Gil Board Chart",[47] illegal copies sold from pirated CD's or cassettes. Though considered unofficial, some of these figures have been verified and used in official capacity, for example, by Guinness World Records and the Golden Disc Awards.[48]
- Gaon rebranded to Circle Chart in July 2022[11]
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References
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