1 Vs 1.1 Million

The Korea Times reports that there are now over 1,000,000 foreigners residing in the country:

The number of foreigners based in Korea has exceeded one million for the first time, up 24 percent, or 215,543, from the previous year, a survey said Wednesday.

According to the one-month study conducted in May by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, there are currently 1,106,884 foreigners residing in the nation, accounting for 2.2 percent of the nation's entire population of 49,593,665.

That's a large increase in 12 months and probably due to the straightened economic circumstances in places like North America.

While you would be right in guessing that the majority of foreigners live in Seoul (3.3%) it is interesting to note that the second largest concentration is in Chungnam. The Chungcheon provinces together constitute a fairly large foreigner base and dear I say made up mostly of non-white foreigners. (Like our glass particle PDP TV manufacturing brethren)

There are 32 cities and counties with foreign populations of more than 10,000. Last year, there were 22 such municipalities.

Chinese nationals, including Korean-Chinese, were the biggest component of the foreign population here, comprising 56.5 percent (624,994), followed by Southeast Asians, including Vietnamese and Filipinos, with 21.2 percent (230,577), and Americans with 5.4 percent (59,870). Taiwanese and Japanese nationals also constituted sizeable portions of the foreign community.

At a combined 4.2% look for a large political grassroots movement for foreigners coming out of there before anywhere else.

The obvious flow on from this of course is the growth of foreigner-Korean children. If there is to be a paradigm shift in Korea at all, it will be born on the backs of these kids in about 20 years.