Donald Trump named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2016

New York: US president-elect Donald Trump has been named TIME Person of the Year 2016, yes you got it right!

American real estate business tycoon Donald Trump, whose election as US president surprised many around the world in the hotly contested polls, has been declared TIME magazine’s Person of the Year for 2016.

The world-renowned magazine made the announcement on Wednesday.

Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year 2016 #TIMEPOY https://t.co/5pTGOksevE pic.twitter.com/N8BtqTu9Nl — TIME (@TIME) December 7, 2016

In another tweet, the magazine explained why Trump was chosen for the coveted title. 

See why Donald Trump was chosen as TIME's Person of the Year 2016 #TIMEPOY https://t.co/T7E33fClze pic.twitter.com/7OsHmndhEW — TIME (@TIME) December 7, 2016

“It’s a great honour. It means a lot,” the US president-elect said while reacting to the news. “It’s a very important magazine and I’ve been lucky enough to be on the cover many times this year,” he said.

Time said after campaigning as an anti-establishment, populist candidate, 70-year-old Trump was elected the 45th President of the US - a stunning end to a presidential bid that repeatedly broke with political precedent.

The first runner-up for Person of the Year is Trump's rival in the US presidential elections and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and the second runner-up are online hackers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the 11 candidates shortlisted by Time for its annual honour.

The Person of the Year is picked by Time editors from among world leaders, artists, corporate czars and organisations who most influenced the news, for better or for worse.

Modi won the online readers' poll conducted by the Time magazine for Person of the Year 2016, the second time he emerged winner of the reader's choice poll.

Time has historically given the president-elect or the president the title each election year.

President Obama was named the Person of the Year after both of his elections in 2008 and 2012.

George W. Bush got it in 2000 and 2004. Bill Clinton earned the honor in 1992, while he split it in 1998 with Ken Starr, the lawyer whose investigations set the stage for the president’s impeachment.

Trump was among the 11 Person of the Year finalists Time announced earlier this week.

Along with Trump and his rival Hillary Clinton, three other Americans made the cut: - four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, pop icon Beyoncé Knowles and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was last year’s recipient of the coveted title. Trump was a runner-up. The year before that, 2014, the Person of the Year were the Ebola fighters.

The magazine has made the designation every year since 1927, when aviator Charles Lindbergh was chosen as the first Man of the Year. The title was amended to Person of the Year in 1999.

Over its history, TIME has bestowed the title to many presidents, political leaders and industry trailblazers who often view the designation as an honor.

However, the magazine also has selected notorious recipients in the past, including Adolf Hitler in 1938, Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942, and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, because of the impact they had on the world at the time.