Number of expats now at 590,000

The number of foreign residents in Korea rose 1.5-fold in five years to top 590,000 in 2010, a nationwide census showed yesterday. The census, which is carried out by Statistics Korea every five years, also showed that there were 90 countries that had more than 30 nationals living in Korea as of last year.

Of the total, 50.8 percent, or 299,000, were from China, including people of Korean descent, followed by people from Vietnam and the United States.

The number of Vietnamese and U.S. citizens in the country made up 10.1 percent and 7.1 percent of all foreign residents, respectively, followed by 4.2 percent for Filipinos and 2.9 percent each for Indonesians and Japanese. Other nationalities that made the top 10 were Thais, Mongolians, Uzbeks and Taiwanese.

Countries that had over 1,000 nationals were Myanmar, France, New Zealand, Germany and South Africa, with other European countries like the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Finland and Greece having 100 to 300 nationals in the country.

Yonhap