The incoming US president and vice president were selected for Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year" award.
ADVERTISEMENTUS President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were given Time Magazine's 2020 "Person of the Year" award.
The US magazine selects a person, group or idea annually that has influenced the events of the year for better or for worse.
Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said the magazine picked the incoming American Democrats: "for changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, [and] for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world."
Biden and Harris were elected to succeed President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in November and face a number of challenges when they enter office including a pandemic that has worsened significantly in the United States, a reckoning over racial injustice, climate change and many others.
Joe Biden is one of the oldest people to be named "Person of the Year" at the age of 78. He takes the title one year after the magazine named its youngest "Person of the Year" - Greta Thunberg.
They were on a shortlist with incumbent President Donald Trump, American infectious disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci and frontline workers, as well as the racial justice movement.
Frontline health workers and racial justice organisers were named "Guardians of the Year" 2020.
"Guardians put themselves on the line to defend the ideals sacred to democracy," the magazine wrote in its profile of the groups.
Eric Yuan, the founder and CEO of the popular video conferencing application Zoom, was named "Businessperson of the Year".
The video conferencing platform went form 10 million daily participants in December 2019 to around 300 million daily meeting participants by April 2020.
Time Magazine also named Korean pop group BTS "Entertainer of the Year" and basketball player Lebron James as "Athlete of the Year".
The magazine cited BTS' worldwide presence and record-breaking rise in a difficult year, and Los Angeles Lakers star James' efforts to get people to vote for their choices.