A total of 1,057 South Korean children were adopted last year, with domestic adoption continuing to show the tendency of preferring girls over boys.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that the number of adopted children declined slightly from 1,172 in 2014. Last year, Korean parents adopted 683 children, up from the 637 in 2014. Fewer South Korean children, however, were adopted overseas in 2015 -- 374 compared to 535 the previous year.

Of those adopted in Korea, 67.5 percent were girls while the remaining 32.5 percent were boys. It was the opposite for overseas adoptions in which 76.7 percent were boys compared to the 23.3 percent made up of girls.

Koreans have traditionally tended to prefer adopting girls largely due to the Confucian-influenced perception that males tend to be more drawn to their biological roots.

Those in the U.S. adopted the most South Korean children at 74.3 percent, followed by those in Sweden, Canada and Norway.