Foreign nationals make up 2.4% of Seoul population

The number of foreign residents in Seoul has increased fivefold over the last decade, accounting for 2.4 percent of the total population of the city.

The number of foreign residents in Seoul as of the end of last year reached 255,000, according to the city`s e-Seoul Statistics, published yesterday. The corresponding figure in 1998 was 51,000.

Among all 152 nationalities, 192,618 (75.5 percent) of the foreign residents were Chinese, followed by the United States with 12,821 (5 percent), Taiwan with 8,818 (3.5 percent) and Japan with 6,840 (2.7 percent).



The female population took up 51.8 percent (132,000) of the entire population.

More than 56 percent were older than 40, with 65,545 (25.7 percent) in their 40s, 53,314 (20.9 percent) in their 50s, and 25,440 (10 percent) older than 60.

By district, Yeoungdeungpo was the mostly densely foreign-populated with 35,438 foreigners (13.9 percent), followed by Guro with 27,901 (10.9 percent).

The Chinese residents mostly live in the western districts of Yeoungdeungpo and Guro, while Americans mostly reside in southern Gangnam and central Yongsan, where a major U.S. Armed Forces unit is located. The Taiwanese favored the Seodaemun and Mapo area.

The legal status of the foreigners ranged from workers (149,000 or 58.5 percent), marriage immigrants (29,560 or 11.6 percent), students (19,869 or 7.8 percent) and professional human resources (10,503 or 4.1 percent).

Along with the growth of the local foreign population, the number of international marriages has also increased over the past few years.

A total of 7,947 international marriages were reported last year, among which 5,909 cases (69.3 percent) involved a Korean husband and a foreign wife.

The number of immigrant spouses doubled from 14,710 in 2004 to 29,560 last year and that of multicultural children has thus far tripled from 688 in 2005 to 2,259 last year.

The number of divorces in multicultural homes, however, also leapt from 834 in 2004 to 2,941 last year.

(tellme@heraldm.com)



By Bae Hyun-jung