Indonesia and Thailand look up Son Heung-min. Vietnam looks up Faker
Four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, four different Korean athletes at the top. The question is not who is biggest but why the four lists disagree.
The most-read Korean athlete, taken one edition at a time, is Son Heung-min, Faker, Son Heung-min, Bergson Gustavo Silveira da Silva — 3 different people across four countries. The four editions do not agree, and this page is about why.
Of the 950 people measured, 900 are recorded only as players and 49 as both player and manager. Those 49 are kept in a separate table below rather than ranked against current players.
The four editions, side by side
Reads per million reads of the whole language edition, 12 months. One row is one person. Dividing by the size of each edition is what makes the four comparable — the Indonesian Wikipedia draws several times the reads the Malay one does, so raw counts would only measure the encyclopaedias, not the readers.
Indonesia
Indonesian Wikipedia · 838M reads in the window · 360 Korean athletes have an article here
| Athlete | Per million | Sport |
|---|---|---|
| Son Heung-min | 80.98 | Football |
| Park Ji-Sung | 20.82 | Football |
| Lee Kang-in | 12.37 | Football |
| Kim Min-jae | 7.89 | Football |
| Jens Castrop | 6.84 | Football |
| Ahn Jung-hwan | 5.98 | Football |
| Yoo Jae-hoon | 5.44 | Football |
| Hwang Hee-chan | 4.23 | Football |
Football 98.7% · Baseball 1% · Esports 0.2% ·
Vietnam
Vietnamese Wikipedia · 595M reads in the window · 663 Korean athletes have an article here
| Athlete | Per million | Sport |
|---|---|---|
| Faker | 250.45 | Esports |
| Son Heung-min | 144.63 | Football |
| Peanut | 96.19 | Esports |
| Lee Min-hyung | 88.57 | Esports |
| Jung Ji-hun | 78.48 | Esports |
| Kim Soo-hwan | 72.5 | Esports |
| Ryu Min-seok | 68.31 | Esports |
| Doran | 59.48 | Esports |
Esports 59.4% · Football 40.3% · Baseball 0.2% ·
Thailand
Thai Wikipedia · 369M reads in the window · 67 Korean athletes have an article here
| Athlete | Per million | Sport |
|---|---|---|
| Son Heung-min | 104.99 | Football |
| Park Ji-Sung | 17.9 | Football |
| Kim Min-jae | 10.15 | Football |
| Faker | 9.66 | Esports |
| Go Seul-ki | 5.21 | Football |
| Hwang Hee-chan | 4.91 | Football |
| Lee Kang-in | 4.78 | Football |
| Cho Gue-sung | 3.15 | Football |
Football 93.4% · Esports 4.8% · Golf 1.2% ·
Malaysia
Malay Wikipedia · 163M reads in the window · 370 Korean athletes have an article here
| Athlete | Per million | Sport |
|---|---|---|
| Bergson Gustavo Silveira da Silva | 32.46 | Football |
| Son Heung-min | 11.7 | Football |
| Park Ji-Sung | 6.16 | Football |
| Park Tae-soo | 5.9 | Football |
| Faker | 3.63 | Esports |
| Park Jun-heong | 2.83 | Football |
| Lee Kang-in | 2.62 | Football |
| Kim Young-kwang | 2.04 | Football |
Football 89.4% · Baseball 8.5% · Esports 2.2% ·
Korean footballers, all four countries at once
One row per person, all four editions on the row. Reads per million first, then the raw count of times the article was opened, so the scaling can be checked against the thing it scales. Concentration is the share of that person's four-country total that sits in their largest single country — a player read everywhere lands near 25%, a player read in one place lands near 100%.
| Player | Indonesia | Vietnam | Thailand | Malaysia | Total | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Son Heung-min | 80.98 (67,903) | 144.63 (86,094) | 104.99 (38,704) | 11.7 (1,907) | 342.3 | 42.3% vi |
| Park Ji-Sung | 20.82 (17,453) | 29.56 (17,598) | 17.9 (6,599) | 6.16 (1,004) | 74.44 | 39.7% vi |
| Lee Kang-in | 12.37 (10,372) | 28.34 (16,872) | 4.78 (1,762) | 2.62 (427) | 48.11 | 58.9% vi |
| Kim Min-jae | 7.89 (6,613) | 19.36 (11,525) | 10.15 (3,740) | 1.29 (210) | 38.69 | 50% vi |
| Bergson Gustavo Silveira da Silva | — | 0.5 (298) | — | 32.46 (5,289) | 32.96 | 98.5% ms |
| Hwang Hee-chan | 4.23 (3,549) | 8.53 (5,078) | 4.91 (1,810) | — | 17.67 | 48.3% vi |
| Jens Castrop | 6.84 (5,737) | 5.26 (3,131) | — | 0.92 (150) | 13.02 | 52.5% id |
| Ahn Jung-hwan | 5.98 (5,014) | 5.28 (3,142) | — | 0.93 (152) | 12.19 | 49.1% id |
| Hwang Ui-jo | 0.65 (549) | 9.11 (5,422) | 0.58 (215) | 0.93 (151) | 11.27 | 80.8% vi |
| Cho Gue-sung | 2.15 (1,802) | 5.38 (3,202) | 3.15 (1,160) | — | 10.68 | 50.4% vi |
| Ki Sung-yueng | 1.17 (982) | 4 (2,381) | 1.72 (634) | 1.03 (168) | 7.92 | 50.5% vi |
| Gong O-kyun | — | 6.96 (4,144) | — | — | 6.96 | 100% vi |
| Hwang In-beom | 2.32 (1,946) | 4.46 (2,656) | 0.17 (62) | — | 6.95 | 64.2% vi |
| Lee Seung-woo | 1.34 (1,123) | 3.37 (2,008) | — | 1.95 (318) | 6.66 | 50.6% vi |
The Koreans who played, then managed
Wikidata records both roles for anyone who played before managing, so it cannot say which one a reader came for. We keep them in their own table rather than rank a national-team manager against a player. In two of these four countries the most-read Korean is a manager, and that is the finding, not a nuisance.
| Manager | Indonesia | Vietnam | Thailand | Malaysia | Total | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kim Sang-sik | 1.84 (1,542) | 132.71 (79,001) | 2.57 (947) | 0.66 (107) | 137.78 | 96.3% vi |
| Shin Tae-yong | 74.72 (62,647) | 9.58 (5,700) | 2.7 (995) | 6.05 (986) | 93.05 | 80.3% id |
| Park Hang-seo | 3.22 (2,704) | 60.77 (36,177) | 7.31 (2,696) | 2.44 (397) | 73.74 | 82.4% vi |
| Cha Bum-kun | — | 27.42 (16,320) | — | 2.26 (369) | 29.68 | 92.4% vi |
| Hong Myung-bo | 7.52 (6,306) | 14.19 (8,450) | 4.32 (1,593) | 1.54 (251) | 27.57 | 51.5% vi |
| Kim Pan-gon | — | — | — | 10.08 (1,642) | 10.08 | 100% ms |
| Lee Jung-soo | 0.23 (197) | 5.54 (3,296) | 0.46 (168) | 0.2 (32) | 6.43 | 86.2% vi |
| Kim Do-hoon | 0.93 (781) | 1.59 (946) | — | 0.2 (33) | 2.72 | 58.5% vi |
| Hwang Sun-hong | 0.65 (545) | 1.6 (950) | — | 0.29 (48) | 2.54 | 63% vi |
| Lee Young-jin | — | 1.7 (1,011) | — | — | 1.7 | 100% vi |
| Huh Jung-moo | 0.54 (453) | 0.97 (578) | — | — | 1.51 | 64.2% vi |
| Kim Do-heon | — | 1.04 (618) | — | 0.29 (48) | 1.33 | 78.2% vi |
Median concentration is 50.55% for the players and 81.35% for the managers. A player's readership is spread across the region; a manager's sits in the country that hired him.
The top manager scores 137.78 against the top player's 342.3. Of the 14 players listed above, 13 score below that one manager — who earns it in a single country while they are spread over four.
The most-read Korean manager scores 137.78 against the most-read player's 342.3. Of the 14 players listed, 13 score below the top manager. A manager is read in one country and a player in several, which is why the two are in separate tables and not one ranking.
What a read is not
Reading an encyclopaedia article is not the same as following a sport. This counts people looking someone up. It cannot say who is liked, only who is looked up.
Readers in Southeast Asia also use the English edition, so a language-edition count is a floor on interest in that country, not a measure of it.
Of 8,917 Korean athletes on Wikidata, 7,967 have no article in any of these four editions. That is an absence of an article, not an absence of interest, and we do not count it as a zero.
The country we did not measure
Tagalog Wikipedia is too small to measure with — the whole edition draws fewer reads in a year than a single popular article does elsewhere, and Filipino readers largely use the English edition. We do not report a Philippines number rather than report a weak one.
How this was counted
- Source — Wikidata (CC0) for people and article links; Wikimedia Pageviews API for reads
- Window — 2025-08 through 2026-07, 12 months, human traffic only
- Panel — 8,917 Korean athletes on Wikidata (football, esports, baseball, golf, MMA); 950 of them have an article in at least one of these four editions and could be measured.
- Esports — 24 of the measured athletes are esports players.
How esports titles travel · How we count · What we have corrected
Card set — free to share
Five cards, 1080×1350. Every figure on them is in the table on this page. Take them.
A short, with sound
A man and a woman read out the two medians — how much of a player's reading sits in one country, and how much of a manager's does — and name the countries that hired them. Free to repost with the address on it.
All our short films — each one built from a table on this site
What we wrote from this data
- Faker gets a year of readers in one month. Son does not
Split Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Malay Wikipedia reads by month. All eleven esports players in the panel peak in the same month, and they agree in three of the four years we measured. The footballers never once agree.
13 August 2026
- One Korean act is read more than Son Heung-min in SEA
We put 2,511 Korean entertainers, 900 athletes and 22 luxury and car brands on one scale. BTS clears the footballer. Of everyone else measured, nobody does — and the most-read brand sits at a sixth of the leaders.
13 August 2026
- Son Heung-min outreads all 1,023 Korean actors we measured
We measured 1,972 Koreans with one instrument. Son Heung-min sits above all 1,023 actors. But 22 actors clear 100 against two athletes, and the two groups are read in different countries. Musicians who never acted are not in this panel.
13 August 2026
- Shin Tae-yong and Kim Sang-sik outdraw Son Heung-min
A Korean player is read across Southeast Asia; a Korean manager is read in the one country that hired him. Median concentration in a single country: 50.55% for the players, 81.35% for the managers.
13 August 2026 · corrected
- Vietnam reads Faker where its neighbours read Son Heung-min
Four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, twelve months, 926 Korean athletes. Three of the four read almost only football. In the fourth, esports takes 60.6% of the reads and the most-read Korean athlete is not a footballer.
13 August 2026
What happens if we remove one person
| Group | People | Median | Lowest without one | Highest without one | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | 14 | 50.5% | 50.5% | 50.6% | 0.1 pt |
| Managers | 12 | 81.3% | 80.3% | 82.4% | 2.1 pt |
Removing any single person moves the players' median by 0.1 points and the managers' by 2.1. The gap between the two groups, which is the finding, survives both.
This check is a jackknife, and a jackknife understates how much a median moves — it is not consistent for a median at all. So a swing it finds is real, but a swing it does not find is not evidence of stability. We publish it as the weaker statement it is.