Billboard Year-End

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Billboard Year-End charts are cumulative rankings of entries in Billboard magazine charts in the United States in any given chart year. Several hundred Year-End charts are now published by Billboard, the most important of which are the single or album charts based on Hot 100 and Billboard 200 respectively.

Billboard's "chart year" runs from the first Billboard "week" of December to the final week in November, but because the Billboard week is dated in advance of publication, the last calendar week for which sales are counted is usually the third week in November.^[1] This altered calendar allows for Billboard to calculate year-end charts and release them in time for its final print issue in the last week of December.

Due to this methodology, albums at the peak of their popularity at the time of the November/December chart-year cutoff many times end up ranked lower than one would expect on a year-end tally, yet are ranked on the following year's chart as well, as their cumulative points are split between the two chart years.