KIRD Korea Immigration Regional Dashboard
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Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Korean-Chinese

People registered with Korean-Chinese nationality number 251,037, which is 15.6% of all registered foreigners and ranks 2 in size. Compared with 380,091 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is a decrease of about 34%. They live in 250 districts, and the largest counts are Gyeonggi-do Siheung-si with 17,988, Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si with 16,024, and Seoul Guro-gu with 15,924. The index of dissimilarity (D) from Koreans is 0.519, the isolation index is 0.018, and interaction with Koreans is 0.95. The highest location quotient (LQ) is in Gyeonggi-do Ansan-si Danwon-gu at 10.6, where this nationality is 5.2% of the foreigners in that district. The continent of origin is East Asia. The largest age group is 60+ at 36.6%, and men are 52.4%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by nationality, registered foreigners by nationality and district, registered foreigners by status of stay), staying foreigners by nationality and age

The index of dissimilarity, the isolation index, and the location quotient are calculated from the open dataset.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: people, organizations, index
2025
IndicatorsKorean-ChineseAll registered foreignersRelative to total
Registered foreigners251,0371,604,92015.6% of the total
Districts of residence250250All districts
Index of dissimilarity (D)0.5190.280rank 70 of 107
Isolation index0.0180.045rank 1 of 107
Interaction with Koreans0.9500.955rank 81 of 107
ContinentEast Asia568,673 (35.4% of the total)44.1% of those from East Asia

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality), segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals; 0 means the two distributions match and 1 means complete separation. Isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. In the All registered foreigners column the three indices treat all registered foreigners as one group and use the same formulas. In the Relative to total column, rank 1 is the highest value among nationalities with 100 or more registered foreigners that year; in the continent row that column gives this nationality's share of all registered foreigners from the continent.

Figure 1.Korean-Chinese nationals among registered foreigners, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Note: The vertical scale resets to the size of the selected nationality.

View as table
YearKorean-ChineseVietnam
2006221,52552,157
2007310,48567,197
2008362,92079,848
2009363,08786,166
2010366,15498,225
2011389,398110,564
2012322,861114,211
2013329,835113,843
2014375,572122,571
2015380,091128,042
2016341,863137,769
2017318,768151,385
2018345,318170,707
2019332,525187,334
2020286,933181,415
2021253,533178,928
2022237,869196,883
2023242,032227,930
2024246,988261,581
2025251,037293,907
Table 2.Korean-Chinese nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
RankDistrictKorean-Chinese NationalityShare of local foreigners
1Gyeonggi-do Siheung-si17,98842.6
2Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si16,02450.5
3Seoul Guro-gu15,92465.2
4Gyeonggi-do Ansan-si Danwon-gu15,07739.4
5Seoul Yeongdeungpo-gu14,84062.1
6Incheon Bupyeong-gu9,52552.7
7Seoul Geumcheon-gu9,11863.9
8Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Paldal-gu7,42758.7
9Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si6,70512.2
10Gyeonggi-do Pyeongtaek-si5,99016.6

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district and nationality).

Note: Nationwide, Korean-Chinese nationals make up 15.6% of all registered foreigners, so an area whose share is above that holds relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %
2025
RankDistrictKorean-Chinese NationalityLocation quotient (LQ)Share of local foreigners
1Gyeonggi-do Ansan-si Danwon-gu15,07710.65.2
2Seoul Guro-gu15,9248.54.1
3Seoul Geumcheon-gu9,1188.34.1
4Seoul Yeongdeungpo-gu14,8408.24.0
5Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Paldal-gu7,4277.93.9
6Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si Sosa-gu8,1437.43.6
7Gyeonggi-do Siheung-si17,9887.13.5
8Gyeonggi-do Osan-si5,5884.62.2
9Incheon Bupyeong-gu9,5254.01.9
10Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si Wonmi-gu7,0983.81.8

Source: Location quotient from the open dataset.

Note: the location quotient is the local share divided by the national share; above 1.5 counts as over-representation.

Table 4.By status of stay Korean-Chinese nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Visa categoryPersonsShare
Permanent Residence(F5)144,45557.5
Visiting Employment(H2)70,56928.1
Marriage Migration(F6)15,2936.1
Residential(F2)13,2565.3
Visiting Cohabitation(F1)4,3421.7
Dependent Family(F3)1,9940.8
Non-professional Employment(E9)4870.2
Other statuses(ETC)2070.1
Other statuses4340.2

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The rows of this table add to 251,037, the whole of the Korean-Chinese nationality.

Table 5.Age and sex, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Age groupTotalMaleFemaleShare
0-44,1252,1741,9510.6
5-99,7484,9014,8471.5
10-147,5433,7613,7821.2
15-196,3493,1463,2031.0
20-249,4894,9724,5171.5
25-2915,1417,9687,1732.4
30-3428,94615,56813,3784.5
35-3961,75834,83526,9239.6
40-4460,38435,97824,4069.4
45-4953,86433,00320,8618.4
50-5467,23138,92028,31110.4
55-5983,26043,86539,39512.9
60+235,565107,952127,61336.6

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 643,403 rather than the 251,037 registered foreigners

Figure 2.Composition by age and sex, 2025Unit: %
2025

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Note: The bar length is the share each cell holds within the whole nationality. This figure alone uses staying foreigners, so its total differs from registered foreigners.

Figure 3.Change in status-of-stay composition, 2008–2025Unit: %

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The share each status holds within this nationality in that year. The five largest statuses in 2025 are drawn.

View as table
Year
20080.080.60.09.85.1
20090.382.20.08.94.8
20105.375.00.08.84.1
20118.374.60.38.03.6
201214.169.56.14.14.0
201317.067.76.73.53.3
201417.170.55.43.12.4
201518.870.04.93.12.1
201622.066.75.13.22.5
201724.562.65.33.43.6
201823.562.94.93.05.1
201926.757.95.23.36.1
202033.345.06.04.06.6
202139.941.76.74.66.1
202245.436.67.15.15.1
202347.835.46.85.24.1
202452.631.86.45.32.9
202557.528.16.15.31.7
Figure 4.Residential segregation and exposure over time, 2014–2025Unit: index
Indicators

Source: Segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals, isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. The three run on different ranges, so they are selected one at a time.

View as table
YearIndex of dissimilarity (D)Isolation indexInteraction with Koreans
20140.4930.0290.953
20150.4980.0290.951
20160.5080.0270.951
20170.5140.0250.952
20180.5220.0280.949
20190.5200.0260.950
20200.5170.0220.956
20210.5130.0190.960
20220.5110.0180.959
20230.5130.0180.955
20240.5160.0180.952
20250.5190.0180.950
Table 6.Korean-Chinese nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %
First languageShare
No data for this year.

Source: Ethnologue 24th edition, first-language shares by country.

Note: the estimated demand on the language page is this share multiplied by the registered foreign population of each nationality. Shares below 0.5% are not listed, and a person who speaks more than one language is not distinguished.

Figure 5.By province, Korean-Chinese nationality, 2025Unit: persons
2025

Count range

    Note: The boundaries are shapes simplified for display and are drawn as pen lines. The fill values are the provincial totals from the yearbook and do not depend on the shapes.

    Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality and district), summed to the province level.

    View as table
    ProvinceKorean-Chinese NationalityShare of national
    Gyeonggi-do121,87948.6
    Seoul67,86827.0
    Incheon21,9558.7
    Chungcheongnam-do11,3274.5
    Chungcheongbuk-do5,1552.1
    Gyeongsangnam-do4,7681.9
    Ulsan3,7781.5
    Gyeongsangbuk-do2,8391.1
    Busan1,8730.7
    Jeollanam-do1,5510.6
    Jeollabuk-do1,5220.6
    Daegu1,4480.6
    Jeju-do1,3750.5
    Gangwon-do1,1090.4
    Daejeon1,0660.4
    Gwangju9420.4
    Sejong5820.2