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Seoul Seodaemun-gu

Registered foreigners in Seoul Seodaemun-gu number 16,685, which is 5.56% of the resident-registration population of 300,147. That is above both the national average of 3.14% and the Seoul average of 3.01%. It ranks 38 among the 250 districts. Within Seoul it ranks 8 of 25. Over the past 10 years, registered foreigners rose from 10,964 in 2015 to 16,685, an increase of about 52.2%. 130 nationalities are counted, and the three largest are China at 35.7%, Vietnam at 12.6%, and Taiwan at 10.7%. Shannon diversity (H) is 2.029, below the national 2.607, and ranks 203 of 250 districts. Within Seoul it ranks 20. By continent of origin, diversity is 0.139, above the national 0.123. It ranks 93 of 250 districts. East Asia accounts for 55.9% and Southeast Asia for 17.7%, and the two together are 73.6%. The location quotient (LQ) for China is 4.5, and this one nationality is 35.7% of the foreigners in the district. Language demand estimated from the nationality composition is highest for Chinese, then Vietnamese, then English.

Foreign residents (MOIS) numbered 19,338 in 2024, which is 6.1% of the resident-registration population of 316,345. Of these, 17,038 do not hold Republic of Korea nationality, 1,083 have acquired nationality, and 1,217 are children of foreign residents. By type, International studentss number 7,725, other foreigners 6,030, overseas Koreans with foreign nationality 1,313, and Marriage migrants 1,077. Children of foreign residents number 1,217, which ranks 96 among 252 districts and is 6.3% of foreign residents in this district. Among the 16,685 people with a known status of stay, the most common are Student (D2) with 7,668 people at 46%, General Trainee (D4) with 2,485 at 14.9%, and Permanent Residence (F5) with 1,930 at 11.6%. Organizations that support immigrants number 9 in this district, or 5.4 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
IndicatorsSeodaemun-guSeoulNationalVs national
Registered foreigners16,685279,6291,604,920National total: 1.0%
Foreign share5.563.013.141.77×
Shannon diversity (H)2.0292.2282.6070.78×
Nationalities130186192National total: 67.7%

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
YearSeodaemun-guSeoulNational
20082.732.501.72
20123.052.421.83
20163.722.752.25
20203.452.512.21
20255.563.013.14
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
2008331,688100.09,0432.73
2009327,45198.79,1982.81
2010324,54197.89,3302.87
2011314,85294.99,6783.07
2012315,11395.09,6203.05
2013314,11094.79,9573.17
2014310,37693.610,4853.38
2015312,14194.110,9643.51
2016314,19494.711,6773.72
2017312,80094.312,2283.91
2018310,31393.612,7674.11
2019309,39793.313,7744.45
2020312,17394.110,7793.45
2021304,81991.910,8403.56
2022306,33792.413,2174.31
2023306,23192.314,3984.70
2024302,85391.315,7695.21
2025300,14790.516,6855.56
Table 2.Registered foreigners by nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
NationalityRegistered foreignersSeodaemun-gu ShareSeoulNational
China5,96335.724.214.1
Vietnam2,09512.611.218.3
Taiwan1,79310.72.81.1
United States9805.94.22.3
Japan8775.33.91.8
Korean-Chinese5583.324.315.6
France3642.21.30.3
Myanmar3121.91.73.6
Hong Kong2271.40.50.1
United Kingdom2081.20.80.3

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
1Chinese7,28651.0
2Vietnamese1,81012.7
3English1,1768.2
4Japanese8616.0
5Cantonese5784.0
6Spanish4223.0
7French3712.6
8Russian2391.7
9German2071.5
10Burmese1991.4

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 foreignersSeodaemun-gu ShareNational
Student(D2)7,66846.0-
General Trainee(D4)2,48514.9-
Permanent Residence(F5)1,93011.6-
Marriage Migration(F6)7334.4-
Job Seeker(D10)6233.7-
Specially Designated Activities(E7)5643.4-
Residential(F2)5643.4-
Working Holiday(H1)4552.7-
Other statuses1,66310.0-

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 16,685 registered foreigners.

Table 5.Types of foreign residents, 2024Unit: persons, %
2024
TypePersonsShare
International students7,72539.9
Other foreigners6,03031.2
Overseas Koreans1,3136.8
Marriage migrant1,0775.6
Migrant workers8934.6

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

Note: Only this table follows the MOIS count, which totals 19,338, and it covers a different population from the 15,769 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
20080.018.08.514.651.1
20098.321.46.823.729.8
20109.220.36.623.030.4
201110.716.86.724.529.3
201213.115.96.324.728.9
201314.513.75.825.428.5
201415.612.15.726.228.8
201516.012.45.326.728.2
20169.89.86.032.130.4
20179.47.25.834.931.8
20188.36.65.533.835.3
20197.06.15.033.338.4
20208.96.36.028.838.4
20218.26.05.834.533.5
20226.84.95.241.131.0
20236.84.75.240.131.7
20246.84.65.639.931.2
Table 6.Seoul Seodaemun-gu indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: index, rank
2025
IndicatorsThis district Seoul AverageNationalRank
2.0292.2282.607203 / 250
0.6770.7440.87208 / 250
0.1940.1540.09962 / 250
0.1390.0810.12393 / 250
5.563.013.1438 / 250
0.3130.1970.21643 / 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 Seodaemun-guSeoulNational
20081.7191.1571.715
20092.0571.4482.136
20102.0831.4562.173
20112.1091.4542.181
20122.1421.6092.286
20132.1231.6552.322
20142.1221.6372.31
20152.0881.672.325
20162.0221.7492.381
20172.1.8122.421
20182.0011.8182.42
20192.0131.882.445
20202.031.9472.464
20212.1092.0362.491
20222.1252.1232.552
20232.0752.1332.586
20242.0512.1862.604
20252.0292.2282.607
Table 7.Continent of origin, composition and concentration, 2025Unit: %
2025
ContinentShare
East Asia55.9
Southeast Asia17.7
Other17.5
North America5.9
Europe1.1
Central Asia1.1
South Asia0.7

Source: Open dataset, indicators calculated from it.

Note: One nationality holds 30% or more of the foreigners in this district. China 35.7%, location quotient 4.5. The nationalities counted number 130.

Table 9.Multicultural marriages, 2014–2024Unit: cases, %
YearMulticulturalAll marriagesSeodaemun-gu ShareSeoulNational
20141561,7798.88.28.0
20151401,7697.97.67.4
20161421,7118.38.17.7
20171321,5928.38.58.3
20181581,45110.99.19.2
20191411,4809.510.110.3
20201001,2897.87.67.6
2021821,0687.78.27.2
20221101,08610.19.39.1
20231131,1609.710.210.6
20241431,38010.49.59.6

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
IndicatorsSeodaemun-guSeoulNational
Average wage, 20234,8185,0604,344
Share aged 65 and over, 202419.719.420.0
Fiscal independence, 202420.374.043.3
Jobs per 1,000 residents, 2024387619501
Share of jobs in manufacturing, 20241.64.116.2

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,
Seodaemun-gu95.4
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 Seodaemun-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.