Korean pop culture, in numbers

Korean pop culture, in numbers

No rumours, no reprints. We count what Netflix and Wikipedia publish, name every source, and say what we left out.

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In the Netflix Top 10 across Southeast Asia

Week of 2026-07-26 · Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam · Korean-produced titles only

  1. Agent Kim Reactivated6 of 6 countries · peaked at #1 · TV
  2. Desire6 of 6 countries · peaked at #3 · Films · shared title, 16 countries
  3. Spooky in Love6 of 6 countries · peaked at #3 · TV
  4. The Apartment Job6 of 6 countries · peaked at #4 · TV
  5. Mercy For None4 of 6 countries · peaked at #7 · TV
  6. Wonderful Nightmare1 of 6 countries · peaked at #2 · Films

“Korean-produced” comes from Wikidata’s country-of-origin field — not from where it was watched. International co-productions that list Korea are counted.

“Shared title” means we cannot be sure. We match Netflix’s title text against Wikidata, and some titles name a Korean work and a foreign one at once. Where that is true we say so rather than drop the row or claim it: the flag marks a title we cannot resolve from text alone, not a title we believe is wrong. Across the whole five-year catalogue, 79.8% of the viewing sits on titles only Korean works carry.

See every Korean title that has charted here since 2021 →

Most-watched Korean titles, all time

Netflix global weekly hours viewed, summed since July 2021

  1. Squid Game5048m hours
  2. Extraordinary Attorney Woo662m hours
  3. All of Us Are Dead660m hours
  4. Queen of Tears654m hours
  5. The Glory561m hours
  6. Bon Appétit, Your Majesty512m hours
  7. When Life Gives You Tangerines482m hours
  8. King the Land447m hours
  9. Alchemy of Souls419m hours
  10. Bloodhounds353m hours

See the full ranking by hours viewed worldwide →

Korean actors drawing the most attention

English Wikipedia page views, 20260705~20260803 · 1,008 actors measured

  1. So Ji-sub233,542 views · 5 titles
  2. Steven Yeun106,201 views · 1 titles
  3. Nam Joo-hyuk101,843 views · 2 titles
  4. Roh Yoon-seo100,832 views · 4 titles
  5. Kim Mu-yeol89,613 views · 10 titles
  6. Park Eun-bin85,503 views · 5 titles
  7. Choi Dae-hoon83,936 views · 4 titles
  8. Son Na-eun78,075 views · 3 titles
  9. Jisoo76,744 views · 1 titles
  10. Joo Sang-wook72,365 views · 4 titles

See the 50 most looked-up actors →

Rising fastest

Last 7 days against the first 7 of the window · at least 300 views this week

  1. Park Jin-young×151.77 · 5,312 views this week
  2. Shin Hae-sun×84.36 · 2,362 views this week
  3. Park Bo-kyung×30.28 · 27,611 views this week
  4. Jin Seon-kyu×11.48 · 28,201 views this week
  5. Jo Hye-joo×6 · 3,991 views this week
  6. Roh Yoon-seo×5.95 · 21,129 views this week
  7. Baek Sun-ho×5.7 · 7,962 views this week
  8. Yang Se-jong×5.52 · 15,838 views this week
  9. Lee Sun-bin×4.99 · 15,139 views this week
  10. Jeon So-young×4.88 · 12,247 views this week

Attention is not popularity. A page climbs for good news and bad. We report the count, not the reason.

Also running: the ladder census

Korea is treated as the reference point for competitive play, but almost nobody measures how its player base differs from its neighbours’. We count it daily across six regions. A ladder cannot be measured retroactively — a day not counted is gone.

See the current census →

Also running: who works in K-pop and Korean games

How long staff stay at Korea’s listed entertainment agencies and game studios, how many there are, and the gender split — from company filings. Side by side, not ranked.

See the workforce numbers →

Also running: where Korean music is sold

Twenty years of Korean music export value by region, 2005–2024. Japan was four-fifths of it in 2012 and is a third now — while Japanese sales kept rising.

See the twenty-year table →

Also running: who exports Korean television

Broadcast programme exports grew 5.4 times since 2012. Terrestrial broadcasters went from two-thirds of that trade to 4%; the independent studios went from 7% to half.

See the thirteen-year table →

Also running: Korea’s webtoon businesses, counted

All 396 webtoon businesses surveyed in 2024 — by type, by what they do, by headcount and by revenue. The average is ₩8.1bn and three-quarters of them earn under ₩1bn.

See the breakdown →

Also running: the listed content industry, counted whole

Not the famous names — all 248 listed Korean companies in broadcasting, film and audio, and publishing including games. 68,809 people, against the listed market as a whole.

See the whole industry →

Also running: staying power and force

The 50 biggest Korean titles on Netflix, ranked once by how many weeks they lasted and once by hours drawn per week. Of the top eight on each measure, only two appear on both.

See both orders →

Also running: how thin is the top of the ladder

Korea’s top 300 players win only 0.45 points more often than the 700 below them — the narrowest gap of six regions, on all four days measured. Elsewhere it is one to two points.

See the gap between tiers →

Also running: how far Korean titles travel here

All 405 Korean titles that charted in the six Southeast Asian markets, sorted by how many of the six they reached. 44.4% reached all six,31.9% reached exactly one, and little sits between.

See the distribution →

Also running: who stays at the top of the ladder

Korea has the most settled top tier of six regions — 54% of its challengers are long-standing, against 36.8% in North America, which has the most players on hot streaks.

See who stays →

Also running: television, not film

Korea reaches Netflix’s global chart with 151 series and 86 films — and collects 22.3 billion hours from the series against 1.5 billion from the films. A quarter of those films go to number one, so it is not that they go unnoticed.

See the split →

Also running: who the English-speaking world looks up in K-pop

Every Korean musician and group with an English Wikipedia article —2,362 of them — counted over 30 days. Attention, not popularity: a page climbs for good news and bad, and we report the count rather than the reason.

See the count →

Where these numbers come from

Not included: other streaming services, which publish no comparable ranking · broadcast ratings · actors with no English Wikipedia article (336 of 1,344 in our roster).

Not affiliated with any agency, label or studio. Riot Games does not endorse or sponsor this project. Updated 2026. 8. 7. 오전 8:57:08 KST.