Who is BTS?

BTS, otherwise known as Bangtan Sonyeondan, is a South Korean pop group that has garnered millions of fans around the world by transcending language barriers through their music. The seven members—RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook—debuted in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment, a small and unrecognized company that paled in comparison to the three K-pop industry giants at the time.

Although BTS endured heavy criticism from Korean media outlets for years, they persevered and rose to become the best-selling artist in South Korean history. They were the first Korean act to ever top the Billboard Hot 100 chart with their Grammy-nominated single “Dynamite” and went on to receive four more number-one singles since then—the fastest act to do so since Michael Jackson. BTS earned four US number-one albums in less than two years, an achievement only held by a select few groups in history including the Beatles.

The seven members have gone on to become global brand ambassadors, UNICEF partners, and part of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Their accomplishments are endless; from addressing three United Nations General Assemblies to being the youngest recipients in history to receive the Order of Cultural Merit from the President in South Korea, it is indisputable that BTS’s influence spans globally. BTS has made incredible contributions to the music industry and to the spread of Korean culture—and their growing global impact has only become more prominent.

Why Track BTS?

BTS’s astounding popularity and success have attracted millions around the world to everything Korean: culture, music, language, television, tourism, and more. In fact, their cultural impact is so vast that they are credited with bringing an estimated $5 billion a year to the South Korean economy. Although the group had their humble beginnings in South Korea, they have gone on to break worldwide records across Spotify, YouTube, Billboard, TikTok, and more. Their loyal fans, also known as ARMY, have propelled the group into becoming the world’s best selling artists.

The purpose of this project is to understand and communicate the impact of BTS on several countries across the world. BTS has performed in some of the world’s most notable stadiums and earned unprecedented wins across the music charts. We believe that their positive cultural and economic contributions have not only changed the course of K-pop, but also the music industry as a whole. BTS is largely credited for “paving the way” for other K-pop groups to establish their presence outside of Korea. Our team is dedicated to analyzing and contextualizing BTS’s global influence by tracking their rise to fame in various countries across several continents in the world.

How to Use Our Maps?

Our goal is to track and map the rapid global expansion of BTS throughout their years as artists. In doing so we decided on visualizing their tours and their Spotify chart records between 2015 and 2022. Zoom in or out using the + and – buttons or scrolling with your mouse.

BTS Tour History

Every circle represents the venue where a concert or series of back-to-back concerts took place. The size correlates to the venue capacity. This allows us to demonstrate BTS's growth in popularity over the years, as a larger venue would be needed to accommodate a larger fanbase. To display more information about a concert, hover over any circle on the map. The checkbox on the upper right shows different ways to filter the tours and acts as a legend: red corresponds to concerts from the Red Bullet Tour, yellow corresponds to concerts from the Wake Up: Open Your Eyes tour, turquoise corresponds to concerts from the Most Beautiful Moment in Life, blue corresponds to concerts from the Wings tour, and lavendar corresponds to concerts from the Map of the Soul tour.

Spotify Chart History

The maproom initially displays the the number of songs that peaked on Spotify's Top 200 for each country in 2015. The more songs that charted in the chosen year the deeper purple the country will appear. The button for the year currently displayed will be purple not the typical yellow. Click on the year of interest to update the choropleth map for that year and view the corresponding songs charted. Listen to them in the embed Spotify playlist in the sidebar! Hover over a country of interest and check out the pop-up in the top right corner to learn more about the charted songs in that country.