Bibimbap, 'Cupid,' 'King the Land' among the most searched on Google

Korea's traditional dish bibimbap was the most-searched recipe on Google in 2023, while several other Korean content-related keywords, including K-dramas and K-pop song titles, were included in the global search engine’s top search list for this year.

Google announced its “Year in Search 2023,” a roundup of words most frequently searched by its users across the globe. Search words were sorted into 18 categories that included news, recipes and songs.

Topping the list for recipes was bibimbap, one of Korea’s most well-known traditional dishes. It was followed by Spanish espeto and Indonesian papeda.

According to Google Trends, users from India, Singapore and Sweden showed a high propensity of searching for bibimbap among recipes. Bibimbap searches surged particularly in May and September.

Among the other notable inclusions from Korea was K-pop girl group Fifty Fifty’s “Cupid,” ranking fifth in the song category. The song trended as it sparked a short-form dance challenge on the global video platform TikTok, and ranked as the world’s most popular song as the platform’s short-form video background music in 2023.

BTS member Jungkook’s single “Seven” was ranked 10th in the same category. The official music video for the song uploaded on YouTube had 300 million views as of Tuesday, just under five months after it was initially posted in July.

The Netflix romance series “King the Land” ranked fifth in the drama category, followed by the revenge drama series “The Glory.” “King the Land,” starring singer-turned-actors Im Yoon-Ah and Lee Jun-ho, was the most-seen Netflix series for the week of July 17-July 23.