Since then, I've always been fascinated by geography and numbers. Numbers like the Republic of Korea's 2005 population being tallied at 47.28 million, according to last November's census, an increase of 1.14 million (2.5%) from 2000. This makes South Korea the 26th most populous nation.
That means 0.73% of the world's population is in South Korea. Put another way, if the world's population were just 10,000, seventy-three of them would be South Koreans, and none of them would live on Tokto. And if ten of those seventy-three got behind the wheel, the 10,000 would fall to 9,863.
Gender parity is almost perfect, with 23.62 million men (up 2.0% from 2000) and 23.65 million women (up an encouraging 2.9% since 2000). Unfortunately, many of those women are ajummas and halmŏnis, so don't buy your plane ticket just yet.
A trend of the past decade has continued: Seoul proper shrunk by 75,000 to 9.82 million, and Pusan decreased by 139,000 to 3.52 million. Bear in mind that these are still super-humongous megalopolises.
And what I found interesting was that Kyŏnggi-do Province took up the slack for Seoul's population drop: it increased by 1.43 million people (!) to 10.42 million, beating out Seoul for the first time since 1396.
The "capital region," including Seoul, Kyŏnggi-do, and Inch'ŏn, is around half the population of the entire country. Koreans fret over this, but it may not seem as unusual as it sounds. In California, far and away the most populous state in the US (with more people than Canada or Australia), almost one-third live Los Angeles County alone.
If Korea seems crowded, trust me that it is not an optical illusion: population density increased by ten people per square kilometer to reach 474, clearly a sign that we need to construct more square kilometers.
A sign of Korea's graying society is that the number of citizens aged 65 or older reached 4.37 million, accounting for 9.3 per cent of the total population. This is up from 7.3 percent in 2000 and a mere 4.3 percent in 1985.
Korea still remains a religiously pluralistic societ. Buddhists made up 22.8 percent of the population. Protestants were 18.3 per cent and Roman Catholics around 11 per cent.
If I can find more thorough stats, I'll try to report on the number of foreign nationals included in the population. The census-takers made efforts to include foreign citizens residing in the ROK, with English-, Japanese-, and Chinese-language census materials. I answered mine in Korean, but I did tell them there were thirteen New Zealanders living in my apartment. Everybody loves New Zealanders.
Photo: Seoul residents celebrate the new census figures with a massive rally at Sadang Station.
Thanks for the concise update from a fellow fact junkie.
ReplyDeleteOh gawd,,that subway picture scares me..I haven't been to korea in about 10 years, so I don't how much things have changed there but I don't ever remember seoul subway station being that busy..
ReplyDeleteI think that picture was taken on a special day, or something, when it's unusually crowded. But I'm not really sure — the picture's not really of a rally to celebrate the new census figures; it's just something I found on the 'Net, and I can't remember why it was put there.
ReplyDeleteMinty, in general I don't think it's this crowded. I chose this picture because it was the most crowded subway-related image I could find.
But then again, how would I know? I usually drive to work, and when I do take the subway it's typically on the less crowded lines #4 and #6 (sometimes #3). And it's rarelly at rush hour.
No, wait, a few times I had to head south and I did find that Sadang Station's transfer point was a nightmare during the 8 to 9 a.m. rush. It was so bad that I ended up being unable to get on three consecutive trains. In contrast, getting to the same point at the same time of day by going via the orange line (line #3) I didn't have a problem at all.
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ReplyDelete"the picture's not really of a rally to celebrate the new census figures"
ReplyDeleteWhew! Honestly, I thought the picture was about those crazy koreans heading off to a mass rally to cut off their fingers and burn the hinomaru.
/me smacks Kushibo around with a large trout.
Man, I'm not that obtuse..;b But it does sadden me that you think so little of my capacity to detect your not-so-subtle jokes..oh so much pain ;/
Actually, Minty, me "admitting" the caption was not really what I said (iow: stating the obvious) was itself supposed to be humorous. Somebody should get Curzon over here so he can tell us what kind of humor that is.
ReplyDelete"Actually, Minty, me "admitting" the caption was not really what I said (iow: stating the obvious) was itself supposed to be humorous."
ReplyDeleteAHh! Man, I still have much to learn.. I bow to your comedic genius.