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Jeollabuk-do Muju-gun

Registered foreigners in Jeollabuk-do Muju-gun number 375, which is 1.65% of the resident-registration population of 22,787. That is below both the national average of 3.14% and the Jeollabuk-do average of 2.85%. It ranks 186 among the 250 districts. Within Jeollabuk-do it ranks 14 of 15. Over the past 10 years, registered foreigners rose from 250 in 2015 to 375, an increase of about 50%. 21 nationalities are counted, and the three largest are Vietnam at 38.4%, Nepal at 23.2%, and Philippines at 7.7%. Shannon diversity (H) is 1.904, below the national 2.607, and ranks 221 of 250 districts. Within Jeollabuk-do it ranks 14. By continent of origin, diversity is 0.089, below the national 0.123. It ranks 157 of 250 districts. Southeast Asia accounts for 60.8% and South Asia for 23.7%, and the two together are 84.5%. Language demand estimated from the nationality composition is highest for Vietnamese, then Nepali, then Khmer.

Foreign residents (MOIS) numbered 1,643 in 2024, which is 7.2% of the resident-registration population of 22,904. Of these, 1,204 do not hold Republic of Korea nationality, 144 have acquired nationality, and 295 are children of foreign residents. By type, other foreigners number 1,031, Marriage migrants 85, foreign workers 74, and overseas Koreans with foreign nationality 14. Children of foreign residents number 295, which ranks 231 among 252 districts and is 18% of foreign residents in this district. Among the 375 people with a known status of stay, the most common are Seasonal Worker (E8) with 123 people at 32.8%, Non-professional Employment (E9) with 88 at 23.5%, and Marriage Migration (F6) with 77 at 20.5%. Organizations that support immigrants number 3 in this district, or 80 per 10,000 registered foreigners.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by district, by nationality, and by status of stay), MOIS Status of Foreign Residents in Local Governments 2024, MOIS Resident Registration Population Statistics 2025. The diversity indices and location quotients were calculated from the open dataset. The list of support organizations was compiled by this site. DOI 10.3886/E249944

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: persons, %, index
2025
IndicatorsMuju-gunJeollabuk-doNationalVs national
Registered foreigners37549,0771,604,920National total: 0.0%
Foreign share1.652.853.140.53×
Shannon diversity (H)1.9042.4692.6070.73×
Nationalities21119192National total: 10.9%

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district), MOIS Resident Registration Population Statistics.

Note: H is the Shannon diversity index. The number of nationalities is counted from the district-by-nationality table in all three columns: the province value is the union over that province's districts and the national value is the union over the 250 districts. The yearbook began listing every nationality at the district level in 2014, so counts before that year are cut to the top 19 plus other. The national value is the sum of the 250 districts and equals the yearbook's national total.

Figure 1.Foreign share over time, 2008–2025Unit: %

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook each year.

View as table
YearMuju-gunJeollabuk-doNational
20080.751.011.72
20120.751.181.83
20161.041.472.25
20200.901.732.21
20251.652.853.14
Figure 2.Resident population, 2008–2025Unit: 2008=100

Source: MOIS Resident Registration Population Statistics each year.

Note: this is the denominator behind the share in Figure 1. It counts Korean residents on the resident registration and does not include registered foreigners.

View as table
YearResident populationIndexRegistered foreignersForeign share
200826,017100.01960.75
200925,81199.21680.65
201025,57898.31860.73
201125,86399.41870.72
201225,32197.31890.75
201325,39897.62000.79
201425,39097.62260.89
201525,22096.92500.99
201624,94995.92591.04
201724,80995.42501.01
201824,58994.52380.97
201924,30393.42330.96
202024,03692.42160.90
202123,74891.31920.81
202223,48990.32921.24
202323,25189.43271.41
202423,03288.53341.45
202522,78787.63751.65
Table 2.Registered foreigners by nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
NationalityRegistered foreignersMuju-gun ShareJeollabuk-doNational
Vietnam14438.430.218.3
Nepal8723.28.35.6
Philippines297.73.73.4
Thailand277.22.52.9
Cambodia256.77.44.1
Japan133.51.41.8
China133.511.214.1
Laos102.70.80.7
Korean-Chinese71.93.115.6
South Africa30.80.40.3

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

Note: Korean-Chinese and China together come to 59.6%. Jeollabuk-do and the national columns give the share of that nationality among registered foreigners in each area.

Table 3.Top 10 languages by estimated demand, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
RankLanguageEstimated countShare
1Vietnamese12337.5
2Nepali4513.7
3Khmer267.9
4Tagalog/Filipino257.7
5Thai257.5
6Chinese185.4
7Hindi154.5
8Japanese133.9
9Lao51.6
10Bhojpuri51.6

Source: An estimate that applies the first-language shares of Ethnologue first-language shares, with Korean excluded.

Note: Only the top 20 languages are calculated for this district, so the shares are shares within those 20.

Table 4.Registered foreigners by status of stay, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Visa categoryRegistered foreignersMuju-gun ShareNational
Seasonal Worker(E8)12332.8-
Non-professional Employment(E9)8823.5-
Marriage Migration(F6)7720.5-
Visiting Cohabitation(F1)338.8-
Permanent Residence(F5)256.7-
Specially Designated Activities(E7)92.4-
Residential(F2)61.6-
Foreign Language Instructor(E2)51.3-
Other statuses92.4-

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

Note: The national column is the share the same status holds among registered foreigners nationwide in that year. Status is known for all 375 registered foreigners.

Table 5.Types of foreign residents, 2024Unit: persons, %
2024
TypePersonsShare
Other foreigners1,03162.8
Marriage migrant855.2
Migrant workers744.5
Overseas Koreans140.9

Source: MOIS Status of Foreign Residents in Local Governments 2024.

Note: Only this table follows the MOIS count, which totals 1,643, and it covers a different population from the 334 registered foreigners MOJ counted the same year. Adding the two counts the same people twice.

Figure 3.Composition of foreign residents by type over timeUnit: %

Source: MOIS Status of Foreign Residents in Local Governments each year.

Note: The share of each type among foreign residents in this district in that year. Table 5 gives counts for a single year and this figure gives the composition year by year. Values can break in years when district boundaries changed. Types are set by dividing the work, study, and marriage shares among foreign residents without Korean nationality by the national benchmark (38%, 16%, 15%).

View as table
Year
20080.06.535.80.01.4
20091.312.727.70.07.1
20101.610.226.20.08.6
20112.27.625.40.08.5
20122.311.223.10.04.6
20132.48.022.90.06.8
20141.67.823.20.08.0
20153.06.820.80.012.5
20161.47.318.50.019.7
20170.96.616.60.019.4
20181.08.115.80.021.4
20191.07.316.10.022.1
20201.36.116.20.019.1
20211.66.013.70.019.2
20221.85.410.70.033.3
20231.55.67.90.048.0
20240.94.55.20.062.8
Table 6.Jeollabuk-do Muju-gun indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: index, rank
2025
IndicatorsThis district Jeollabuk-do AverageNationalRank
1.9042.4692.607221 / 250
0.6870.8240.87201 / 250
0.2220.1330.09940 / 250
0.0890.1330.123157 / 250
1.652.853.14186 / 250
0.1140.1950.216194 / 250

Source: Open dataset, indicators calculated from it.

Note: Shannon diversity (H) measures how evenly nationalities are mixed, and a higher value means several nationalities of similar size. HHI moves the other way and rises as one or two nationalities dominate. Evenness rescales H to a range of 0 to 1. The rank is the position among the 250 districts ordered from the largest. The province column treats the whole province as one unit. It differs from the mean of the district values.

Figure 4.Indicators over time, 2008–2025Unit: Index
Indicators

Source: Open dataset, indicators calculated from it.

Note: This district, its province, and the national value share one axis. The province and national values are for the same year. Values can break in years when district boundaries changed.

View as table
Year Muju-gunJeollabuk-doNational
20081.6611.7621.715
20092.1052.2392.136
20102.0962.292.173
20112.1142.3772.181
20122.0742.4152.286
20131.9752.4652.322
20141.9072.492.31
20151.8352.4952.325
20161.8212.4772.381
20171.8082.4422.421
20181.9082.4022.42
20191.8182.3892.445
20201.8362.3982.464
20211.9392.3862.491
20221.8992.4262.552
20231.8312.4332.586
20241.8392.4662.604
20251.9042.4692.607
Table 7.Continent of origin, composition and concentration, 2025Unit: %
2025
ContinentShare
Southeast Asia60.8
South Asia23.7
East Asia9.3
Other4.5
North America0.8
Central Asia0.5
Europe0.3

Source: Open dataset, indicators calculated from it.

Note: No nationality accounts for 30% or more of the foreigners in this district. The nationalities counted number 21.

Table 9.Multicultural marriages, 2014–2024Unit: cases, %
YearMulticulturalAll marriagesMuju-gun ShareJeollabuk-doNational
2014139913.18.78.0
20151511712.88.47.4
20168869.38.67.7
2017107413.59.48.3
2018139413.810.49.2
2019158817.011.210.3
20201691.48.67.6
20214586.97.07.2
20225519.810.49.1
2023167222.212.410.6
2024105717.511.69.6

Source: Statistics Korea, Vital Statistics of Multicultural Families.

Note: a marriage counts as multicultural when one spouse is a foreign national or a naturalized Korean. Statistics Korea does not split the wards of a large city, so a ward carries the value for the city named in the column header.

Table 10.General indicators for the areaUnit: 10,000 KRW, %, persons
IndicatorsMuju-gunJeollabuk-doNational
Average wage, 20233,4143,7854,344
Share aged 65 and over, 202438.025.320.0
Fiscal independence, 20248.123.543.3
Jobs per 1,000 residents, 2024516470501
Share of jobs in manufacturing, 20245.714.716.2

Source: NTS National Tax Statistics, year-end wage settlement by district; Statistics Korea e-Local Indicators (share aged 65 and over, fiscal independence, jobs per 1,000 residents, manufacturing jobs).

Note: neither agency splits the wards of a large city, so a ward carries the value for the city named in the column header.

Table 11.Immigrant support organizations, count and density, 2026Unit: count
ScopeOrganizationsor, per 10,000 registered foreigners,
Muju-gun380.0
Jeollabuk-do7415.1
National1,4739.2

Source: List of immigrant support organizations compiled by this site.

Note: a count of organizations is not a measure of how much service is provided, and the size and scope of each organization are not in this list.

Table 12.Jeollabuk-do Muju-gun immigrant support organizations, 2026

Source: List of immigrant support organizations compiled by this site.

Note: Only organizations with an address in this district that serve people directly, that have not closed or gone dormant, and that have a website or social media account confirmed as their own are listed. An organization missing any one of the four does not appear, so one you know of may be absent. The table above counts only the categories used for the density figure, so the two numbers can differ.