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Seoul Guro-gu

Registered foreigners in Seoul Guro-gu number 24,409, which is 6.36% of the resident-registration population of 383,829. That is above both the national average of 3.14% and the Seoul average of 3.01%. It ranks 30 among the 250 districts. Within Seoul it ranks 6 of 25. Over the past 10 years, registered foreigners fell from 32,512 in 2015 to 24,409, a decrease of about 24.9%. 88 nationalities are counted, and the three largest are Korean-Chinese at 65.2%, China at 24.2%, and Vietnam at 2.5%. Shannon diversity (H) is 1.114, below the national 2.607, and ranks 250 of 250 districts. Within Seoul it ranks 25. By continent of origin, diversity is 0.037, below the national 0.123. It ranks 232 of 250 districts. East Asia accounts for 91.9% and Southeast Asia for 4.4%, and the two together are 96.3%. The location quotient (LQ) for Korean-Chinese is 8.4, and this one nationality is 65.2% of the foreigners in the district. Language demand estimated from the nationality composition is highest for Chinese, then Vietnamese, then Cantonese.

Foreign residents (MOIS) numbered 53,279 in 2024, which is 12.7% of the resident-registration population of 418,832. Of these, 43,248 do not hold Republic of Korea nationality, 7,612 have acquired nationality, and 2,419 are children of foreign residents. By type, overseas Koreans with foreign nationality number 20,511, other foreigners 13,105, foreign workers 5,648, and Marriage migrants 3,280. Children of foreign residents number 2,419, which ranks 18 among 252 districts and is 4.5% of foreign residents in this district. Among the 24,409 people with a known status of stay, the most common are Permanent Residence (F5) with 10,262 people at 42%, Visiting Employment (H2) with 5,327 at 21.8%, and Residential (F2) with 2,183 at 8.9%. Organizations that support immigrants number 17 in this district, or 7 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
IndicatorsGuro-guSeoulNationalVs national
Registered foreigners24,409279,6291,604,920National total: 1.5%
Foreign share6.363.013.142.03×
Shannon diversity (H)1.1142.2282.6070.43×
Nationalities88186192National total: 45.8%

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
YearGuro-guSeoulNational
20086.632.501.72
20126.312.421.83
20167.682.752.25
20206.942.512.21
20256.363.013.14
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
2008420,795100.027,9016.63
2009421,967100.327,6466.55
2010423,736100.728,9316.83
2011427,468101.631,4407.35
2012427,520101.626,9586.31
2013424,964101.027,2046.40
2014425,831101.231,3007.35
2015422,092100.332,5127.70
2016417,55199.232,0497.68
2017410,74297.630,8177.50
2018404,49796.133,9898.40
2019406,66496.632,7078.04
2020404,40896.128,0806.94
2021396,75494.324,4096.15
2022395,31593.923,1035.84
2023392,40593.323,2465.92
2024388,16992.223,7476.12
2025383,82991.224,4096.36
Table 2.Registered foreigners by nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
NationalityRegistered foreignersGuro-gu ShareSeoulNational
Korean-Chinese15,92465.224.315.6
China5,91424.224.214.1
Vietnam6212.511.218.3
Japan2481.03.91.8
Myanmar1920.81.73.6
Mongolia1830.74.42.6
Taiwan1590.72.81.1
United States1150.54.22.3
Philippines1000.41.33.4
Thailand790.31.12.9

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
1Chinese5,56271.2
2Vietnamese5336.8
3Cantonese3704.7
4Japanese2433.1
5English1742.2
6Mongolian1732.2
7Burmese1221.6
8Tagalog/Filipino911.2
9Russian730.9
10Thai720.9

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 foreignersGuro-gu ShareNational
Permanent Residence(F5)10,26242.0-
Visiting Employment(H2)5,32721.8-
Residential(F2)2,1838.9-
Marriage Migration(F6)1,8647.6-
Visiting Cohabitation(F1)1,3585.6-
Dependent Family(F3)9964.1-
Student(D2)8343.4-
Other(G1)3821.6-
Other statuses1,2034.9-

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 24,409 registered foreigners.

Table 5.Types of foreign residents, 2024Unit: persons, %
2024
TypePersonsShare
Overseas Koreans20,51138.5
Other foreigners13,10524.6
Migrant workers5,64810.6
Marriage migrant3,2806.2
International students7041.3

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

Note: Only this table follows the MOIS count, which totals 53,279, and it covers a different population from the 23,747 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
20080.062.16.01.015.7
20091.370.86.70.87.1
20101.966.87.00.97.4
20115.854.86.80.914.9
201211.050.65.80.815.5
201316.640.06.10.817.8
201422.033.75.50.720.3
201525.134.34.60.719.2
201624.530.06.60.822.1
201728.224.06.10.924.7
201827.727.55.70.922.8
201927.025.65.90.924.4
202031.121.15.00.925.0
202135.316.35.01.024.2
202237.513.75.31.124.0
202338.512.75.21.123.8
202438.510.66.21.324.6
Table 6.Seoul Guro-gu indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: index, rank
2025
IndicatorsThis district Seoul AverageNationalRank
1.1142.2282.607250 / 250
0.3720.7440.87250 / 250
0.4860.1540.0991 / 250
0.0370.0810.123232 / 250
6.363.013.1430 / 250
0.2930.1970.21650 / 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 Guro-guSeoulNational
20080.3341.1571.715
20090.4871.4482.136
20100.4821.4562.173
20110.5051.4542.181
20120.6811.6092.286
20130.7311.6552.322
20140.7011.6372.31
20150.7261.672.325
20160.8191.7492.381
20170.8531.8122.421
20180.8351.8182.42
20190.8541.882.445
20200.91.9472.464
20210.9552.0362.491
20221.0292.1232.552
20231.0332.1332.586
20241.0812.1862.604
20251.1142.2282.607
Table 7.Continent of origin, composition and concentration, 2025Unit: %
2025
ContinentShare
East Asia91.9
Southeast Asia4.4
Other2.0
South Asia0.6
North America0.5
Central Asia0.4
Europe0.2

Source: Open dataset, indicators calculated from it.

Note: One nationality holds 30% or more of the foreigners in this district. Korean-Chinese 65.2%, location quotient 8.4. The nationalities counted number 88.

Table 9.Multicultural marriages, 2014–2024Unit: cases, %
YearMulticulturalAll marriagesGuro-gu ShareSeoulNational
20143393,26710.48.28.0
20152723,1428.77.67.4
20162962,76310.78.17.7
20173042,53712.08.58.3
20182852,38312.09.19.2
20192962,16513.710.110.3
20201982,1359.37.67.6
20212021,73711.68.27.2
20221771,60911.09.39.1
20232301,71613.410.210.6
20242101,94110.89.59.6

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
IndicatorsGuro-guSeoulNational
Average wage, 20234,0675,0604,344
Share aged 65 and over, 202421.119.420.0
Fiscal independence, 202419.974.043.3
Jobs per 1,000 residents, 2024599619501
Share of jobs in manufacturing, 20247.14.116.2

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,
Guro-gu177.0
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 Guro-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.