Vietnamese

Registered foreigners estimated to speak Vietnamese as a mother tongue number 251,593, which is 18.59% of all language demand and is the largest. It is among the top 20 languages in 250 districts, and the largest counts are Gyeongsan-si with 6,456, Hwaseong-si with 6,098, and Gimhae-si with 5,446. 99.7% of this demand comes from nationals of Vietnam, and 11 nationalities are counted. This figure is an estimate obtained by applying Ethnologue mother-tongue shares to the nationality composition of registered foreigners, and it excludes Korean.

Source: Open dataset, MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy.

Note: Mother tongue shares come from Ethnologue.

Table 1.Top 20 languages by first-language demand, 2025Unit: persons, %, districts

Year 2025

Rank	Language	Estimated count	Share
1	Vietnamese	251,593	18.59
2	Chinese	236,664	17.49
3	Khmer	66,639	4.92
4	Uzbek	51,679	3.82
5	Tagalog/Filipino	48,182	3.56
6	Nepali	46,747	3.45
7	Indonesian	43,663	3.23
8	Thai	41,998	3.10
9	English	41,682	3.08
10	Russian	38,605	2.85
11	Burmese	37,185	2.75
12	Mongolian	36,852	2.72
13	Japanese	28,844	2.13
14	Bengali	27,943	2.06
15	Sinhala	25,506	1.88
16	Hindi	20,760	1.53
17	Kazakh	17,645	1.30
18	Cantonese	17,309	1.28
19	Arabic	11,847	0.88
20	Tamil	10,979	0.81

Source: Open dataset.

Note: An estimate from applying Ethnologue first-language shares to the nationality composition of registered foreigners. Korean is not counted.

Figure 1.Vietnamese estimated demand over time, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: Open dataset.

Note: The nationality composition changes each year, so this line follows the movement of those nationality populations.

View as table

Year	Estimated count	Share of all language demand	Rank
2006	44,894	10.97	2
2007	57,749	12.70	2
2008	68,568	13.97	2
2009	73,981	14.58	2
2010	84,274	15.25	2
2011	94,816	16.00	2
2012	97,945	16.06	2
2013	97,670	14.89	2
2014	105,161	14.70	2
2015	109,842	14.40	2
2016	118,153	14.42	2
2017	129,769	15.22	2
2018	146,264	16.23	2
2019	160,461	17.09	2
2020	155,368	18.10	2
2021	153,254	18.24	2
2022	168,620	17.72	2
2023	195,177	17.64	2
2024	223,955	18.05	2
2025	251,593	18.59	1

Table 2.Vietnamese demand by nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Nationality	Estimated count	Share of this language's demand
1	Vietnam	250,879	99.7
2	Cambodia	293	0.1
3	United States	163	0.1
4	Taiwan	144	0.1
5	Laos	33	0.0
6	Australia	28	0.0
7	Canada	22	0.0
8	Malaysia	22	0.0
9	Germany	3	0.0
10	Norway	1	0.0

Source: Open dataset, MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy.

Note: the registered foreign population of each nationality multiplied by its first-language shares from Ethnologue, so one nationality is split across several languages.

Figure 2.Vietnamese demand, top 12 districts, 2025Unit: persons

Year 2025

Source: Open dataset.

Note: Vietnamese is among the top 20 languages in 250 districts.

View as table

Rank	District	Province	Estimated count
1	Gyeongsan-si	Gyeongsangbuk-do	6,456
2	Hwaseong-si	Gyeonggi-do	6,098
3	Gimhae-si	Gyeongsangnam-do	5,446
4	Dalseo-gu	Daegu	4,942
5	Siheung-si	Gyeonggi-do	4,922
6	Cheonan-si Seobuk-gu	Chungcheongnam-do	4,815
7	Gwangsan-gu	Gwangju	3,975
8	Geoje-si	Gyeongsangnam-do	3,503
9	Dongdaemun-gu	Seoul	3,282
10	Pyeongtaek-si	Gyeonggi-do	3,077
11	Gyeongju-si	Gyeongsangbuk-do	2,940
12	Yuseong-gu	Daejeon	2,842

Table 3.By province, Vietnamese estimated demand, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Province	Estimated count	Share of this language's demand
1	Gyeonggi-do	48,238	19.2
2	Seoul	26,893	10.7
3	Gyeongsangnam-do	24,919	9.9
4	Gyeongsangbuk-do	22,392	8.9
5	Chungcheongnam-do	20,871	8.3
6	Jeollanam-do	18,091	7.2
7	Busan	14,887	5.9
8	Jeollabuk-do	12,692	5.0
9	Daegu	10,529	4.2
10	Daejeon	9,933	3.9
11	Chungcheongbuk-do	9,083	3.6
12	Incheon	8,657	3.4
13	Gwangju	7,459	3.0
14	Ulsan	6,129	2.4
15	Gangwon-do	5,898	2.3
16	Jeju-do	4,008	1.6
17	Sejong	915	0.4

Source: Open dataset.

Note: Only the top 20 languages are counted in each district, so for languages further down the list the province totals can be smaller than the true figure.

Estimation method

The number of registered foreigners of each nationality multiplied by that nationality's mother-tongue shares, then summed. The shares come from Ethnologue. These are not counts of interpretation actually requested, and cases where one person uses two languages or uses Korean cannot be separated out.

District values cover only the top 20 languages in each district, so lower-ranked languages among the 1,594 languages nationwide have empty district columns.