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

Palau

People registered with Palau nationality number 3, which is less than 0.1% of all registered foreigners and ranks 187 in size. Compared with 1 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 200%. They live in 3 districts, and the largest counts are Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Gwonseon-gu with 1, Gyeonggi-do Yangju-si with 1, and Busan Nam-gu with 1. The largest age group is 40-44 at 22.2%, and men are 33.3%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Palauan at 66.7% and English at 19.6%.

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
IndicatorsPalauAll registered foreignersRelative to total
Registered foreigners31,604,920under 0.1% of the total
Districts of residence32501.2% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)-0.280-
Isolation index-0.045-
Interaction with Koreans-0.955-
Continent---

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.Palau 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
YearPalauVietnam
2006152,157
2007067,197
2008179,848
2009186,166
2010298,225
20113110,564
20123114,211
20132113,843
20142122,571
20151128,042
20161137,769
20172151,385
20181170,707
20193187,334
20202181,415
20212178,928
20222196,883
20232227,930
20242261,581
20253293,907
Table 2.Palau nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
RankDistrictPalau NationalityShare of local foreigners
1Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Gwonseon-gu10.0
2Gyeonggi-do Yangju-si10.0
3Busan Nam-gu10.0

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

Note: Nationwide, Palau nationality is 18.3% of all registered foreigners, so a district where the share among its foreigners is above this has relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %
RankDistrictPalau NationalityLocation quotient (LQ)Share of local foreigners

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 Palau nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Visa categoryPersonsShare
Marriage Migration(F6)266.7
Student(D2)133.3

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

Note: The rows of this table add to 3, the whole of the Palau nationality.

Table 5.Age and sex, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Age groupTotalMaleFemaleShare
0-40000.0
5-90000.0
10-1411011.1
15-190000.0
20-2410111.1
25-290000.0
30-3410111.1
35-3910111.1
40-4421122.2
45-4920222.2
50-540000.0
55-590000.0
60+11011.1

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

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 9 rather than the 3 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
20080.00.0
20090.00.0
20100.00.0
20110.033.3
20120.033.3
201350.050.0
201450.050.0
2015100.00.0
2016100.00.0
201750.00.0
2018100.00.0
201966.733.3
2020100.00.0
2021100.00.0
2022100.00.0
2023100.00.0
2024100.00.0
202566.733.3
Figure 4.Residential segregation and exposure over time, Unit: 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
Table 6.Palau nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %
First languageShare
Palauan66.7
English19.6
Tagalog/Filipino10.1
Sonsorolese2.1
Tobian0.9
Japanese0.7

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, Palau 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
    ProvincePalau NationalityShare of national
    Gyeonggi-do266.7
    Busan133.3