About this chart race
At the end of 2013 Gangnam Style had 1.86 billion views and was the only video that had ever passed a billion. Justin Bieber's Baby was second on 0.96B, and the whole top ten fitted under two billion.
Despacito took the record in 2017 on 4.61B. It had only been uploaded that January, so it collected more views in twelve months than Gangnam Style had gathered in five years.
Baby Shark Dance went past it during 2020, 7.57B against 7.13B, and has led ever since. By 2026 it is on 17.06B, close to double Despacito's 9.06B. The rest of the table changed with it: Bath Song, Johny Johny Yes Papa, Phonics Song with Two Words, Wheels on the Bus and Learning Colors are all children's videos, and all of them are now ahead of every pop song except a handful.
Two things look like mistakes and are not. Gangnam Style keeps rising the whole way through — 1.86B to 6.04B — while falling down the ranking; it never lost views, everything above it simply grew faster. And Waka Waka and Wheels on the Bus vanish for a few years in the middle: they dropped out of the published top twenty in those revisions and came back later.
This animated ranking shows how views changed across 32 series between 2013 and 2026. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2026, Baby Shark Dance leads with 17.06 billion views.
Included in this race
Baby Shark Dance, Wheels on the Bus, Despacito, Bath Song, Johny Johny Yes Papa, See You Again, Phonics Song with Two Words, Shape of You, Gangnam Style, Axel F, Uptown Funk, Learning Colors - Colorful Eggs on a Farm, Masha and the Bear - Recipe for Disaster, Waka Waka (This Time for Africa), Sugar, Roar, Sorry, Shake It Off, Bailando, Lean On, Dark Horse, Hello, Blank Space, All About That Bass, Baby, Party Rock Anthem, Love the Way You Lie, Gentleman, Charlie Bit My Finger, On the Floor, Bad Romance, Ai Se Eu Te Pego.
Source
Data from Wikipedia, List of most-viewed YouTube videos (year-end revisions). Every figure shown comes from this source — nothing is estimated or generated.
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