Billboard 200
American weekly album chart published by Billboard magazine
The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recording act is remembered for its "number ones" that outperformed all other albums during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, acquiring its existing name in March 1992. Its previous names include the Billboard Top LPs (1961–1972), Billboard Top LPs & Tapes (1972–1984), Billboard Top 200 Albums (1984–1985), Billboard Top Pop Albums (1985–1991), and Billboard 200 Top Albums (1991–1992).
The chart is based mostly on sales—both at retail and digital– of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991. Still, since July 2015, the tracking week begins on Friday (to coincide with the Global Release Day of the music industry) and ends on Thursday. A new chart is published the following Tuesday, post dated to the Saturday of that week, four days later. The chart's streaming schedule is also tracked from Friday to Thursday.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Billboard 200” as american weekly album chart published by Billboard magazine. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as american weekly album chart published by Billboard magazine. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q188819. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1967, 1992 and 1961.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Billboard 200” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.