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Seoul Gangdong-gu

Registered foreigners in Seoul Gangdong-gu number 4,870, which is 0.98% of the resident-registration population of 499,127. That is below both the national average of 3.14% and the Seoul average of 3.01%. It ranks 229 among the 250 districts. Within Seoul it ranks 23 of 25. Over the past 10 years, registered foreigners rose from 4,663 in 2015 to 4,870, an increase of about 4.4%. 91 nationalities are counted, and the three largest are Korean-Chinese at 26.1%, China at 13.9%, and Vietnam at 9.2%. Shannon diversity (H) is 2.387, below the national 2.607, and ranks 89 of 250 districts. Within Seoul it ranks 2. By continent of origin, diversity is 0.035, below the national 0.123. It ranks 236 of 250 districts. East Asia accounts for 54.2% and Southeast Asia for 17.7%, and the two together are 71.9%. Language demand estimated from the nationality composition is highest for Chinese, then Vietnamese, then English.

Foreign residents (MOIS) numbered 9,808 in 2024, which is 2.2% of the resident-registration population of 454,023. Of these, 6,715 do not hold Republic of Korea nationality, 1,451 have acquired nationality, and 1,642 are children of foreign residents. By type, overseas Koreans with foreign nationality number 2,127, other foreigners 1,995, Marriage migrants 1,247, and foreign workers 954. Children of foreign residents number 1,642, which ranks 53 among 252 districts and is 16.7% of foreign residents in this district. Among the 4,870 people with a known status of stay, the most common are Permanent Residence (F5) with 1,023 people at 21%, Marriage Migration (F6) with 973 at 20%, and Student (D2) with 479 at 9.8%. Organizations that support immigrants number 6 in this district, or 12.3 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
IndicatorsGangdong-guSeoulNationalVs national
Registered foreigners4,870279,6291,604,920National total: 0.3%
Foreign share0.983.013.140.31×
Shannon diversity (H)2.3872.2282.6070.92×
Nationalities91186192National total: 47.4%

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
YearGangdong-guSeoulNational
20081.062.501.72
20120.992.421.83
20160.972.752.25
20200.882.512.21
20250.983.013.14
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
2008469,024100.04,9491.06
2009484,745103.44,9101.01
2010491,871104.95,0681.03
2011495,138105.65,3781.09
2012487,905104.04,8230.99
2013483,379103.14,5900.95
2014476,597101.64,7350.99
2015458,65897.84,6631.02
2016444,16894.74,3030.97
2017436,22393.04,1360.95
2018427,57391.24,3471.02
2019436,06793.04,3230.99
2020459,97098.14,0280.88
2021462,66498.63,8080.82
2022460,06798.13,9700.86
2023459,16797.94,1510.90
2024476,942101.74,5320.95
2025499,127106.44,8700.98
Table 2.Registered foreigners by nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
NationalityRegistered foreignersGangdong-gu ShareSeoulNational
Korean-Chinese1,26926.124.315.6
China67913.924.214.1
Vietnam4499.211.218.3
Mongolia3376.94.42.6
Japan2625.43.91.8
United States2535.24.22.3
Uzbekistan2404.91.74.3
Philippines1232.51.33.4
Thailand1072.21.12.9
Cambodia1022.10.44.1

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

Note: Korean-Chinese and China together come to 59.6%. Seoul 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
1Chinese74424.3
2Vietnamese38612.6
3English31910.4
4Mongolian2929.5
5Japanese2578.4
6Uzbek1765.7
7Tagalog/Filipino1143.7
8Khmer1043.4
9Russian1013.3
10Thai953.1

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 foreignersGangdong-gu ShareNational
Permanent Residence(F5)1,02321.0-
Marriage Migration(F6)97320.0-
Student(D2)4799.8-
Visiting Employment(H2)4739.7-
Residential(F2)2936.0-
Dependent Family(F3)2645.4-
Non-professional Employment(E9)2314.7-
Visiting Cohabitation(F1)2284.7-
Other statuses90618.6-

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 4,870 registered foreigners.

Table 5.Types of foreign residents, 2024Unit: persons, %
2024
TypePersonsShare
Overseas Koreans2,12721.7
Other foreigners1,99520.3
Marriage migrant1,24712.7
Migrant workers9549.7
International students3924.0

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

Note: Only this table follows the MOIS count, which totals 9,808, and it covers a different population from the 4,532 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
20080.048.21.70.734.7
20097.846.716.70.68.4
20108.642.415.70.68.1
201111.835.015.50.610.8
201215.733.913.70.511.1
201320.327.912.90.711.9
201423.723.811.90.513.6
201526.624.910.50.512.9
201620.421.312.50.818.2
201722.717.711.61.018.7
201822.219.011.11.319.2
201921.017.211.01.622.3
202023.715.011.42.019.2
202123.612.912.32.417.9
202223.411.312.22.918.9
202322.411.012.33.119.7
202421.79.712.74.020.3
Table 6.Seoul Gangdong-gu indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: index, rank
2025
IndicatorsThis district Seoul AverageNationalRank
2.3872.2282.60789 / 250
0.7970.7440.8794 / 250
0.1290.1540.099161 / 250
0.0350.0810.123236 / 250
0.983.013.14229 / 250
0.0780.1970.216227 / 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 Gangdong-guSeoulNational
20080.9911.1571.715
20091.3091.4482.136
20101.3511.4562.173
20111.3311.4542.181
20121.5831.6092.286
20131.6381.6552.322
20141.551.6372.31
20151.6111.672.325
20161.7071.7492.381
20171.7761.8122.421
20181.7451.8182.42
20191.8291.882.445
20201.9841.9472.464
20212.1052.0362.491
20222.2232.1232.552
20232.2542.1332.586
20242.3122.1862.604
20252.3872.2282.607
Table 7.Continent of origin, composition and concentration, 2025Unit: %
2025
ContinentShare
East Asia54.2
Southeast Asia17.7
Other13.4
Central Asia5.5
North America5.2
South Asia2.7
Europe1.2

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 91.

Table 9.Multicultural marriages, 2014–2024Unit: cases, %
YearMulticulturalAll marriagesGangdong-gu ShareSeoulNational
20141993,0286.68.28.0
20151652,8125.97.67.4
20161492,4446.18.17.7
20171482,4786.08.58.3
20181772,4097.39.19.2
20191582,1777.310.110.3
20201172,4724.77.67.6
20211241,9336.48.27.2
20221331,6847.99.39.1
20231581,7259.210.210.6
20241602,1187.69.59.6

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
IndicatorsGangdong-guSeoulNational
Average wage, 20234,7635,0604,344
Share aged 65 and over, 202418.819.420.0
Fiscal independence, 202421.974.043.3
Jobs per 1,000 residents, 2024355619501
Share of jobs in manufacturing, 20242.34.116.2

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,
Gangdong-gu612.3
Seoul2559.1
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.Seoul Gangdong-gu 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.