The Korea Herald has the largest circulation of the English-language dailies published in Korea, the first-ever report on the circulation of the country’s 116 dailies by the Korean unit of Audit Bureau of Circulations shows.

The report released Monday was based on the average daily circulation of daily newspapers from July 2009 to December 2009, according to the Korea Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Korea Herald topped the English daily ranking with 35,500 copies per day, followed by the Korea Times with 22,000 and Korea Joongang Daily with 21,200.

The top three vernacular national newspapers in terms of printed circulation were all conservative papers.

The Chosun Ilbo ranked first among 34 national daily newspapers with its daily printed circulation of 1.84 million, followed by the Joongang Ilbo with 1.3 million and the Donga Ilbo with 1.28 million.

The KABC asked 140 daily newspapers to report their circulations for the July to December 2009 period. The auditing was conducted from February to November 2010. Twenty-four papers have not reported their figures to the KABC or were asked to report the numbers again.

The announcement of the daily circulations of almost all newspapers is the first since the ABC’s Korean unit was established in 1989, it said.

The KABC said it will announce the full report on 140 daily newspapers by mid-December.

Next year, the KABC will also report on paid circulation, it said.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)