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| Pedestrians walk in downtown Seoul, Feb. 7. Seoul's population fell below 10 million last year, for the first time since 1998. Korea Times photo by Hong In-ki |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Seoul saw its population drop to under 10 million for the first time in 32 years, according to the city administration, Wednesday.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said the number of residents in the capital stood at 9.91 million as of the end of 2020, down 99,895 from 10.01 million a year earlier, and falling below 10 million for the first time since 1988. Among them, 9.66 million were Korean nationals and 242,623 were foreign residents.
Seoul's population had been continually increasing until the early 1990s due to the influx of residents following the country rapid industrialization, but decreased gradually after peaking at 10.97 million in 1992.
The declining trend was attributable to the development of new satellite cities in Gyeonggi Province surrounding the capital, which were designed to solve problems stemming from overcrowding and soaring housing prices in Seoul, as well as addressing the nation's low birthrate, according to the city government.
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"The development of new towns in Gyeonggi has affected the decrease in population of Seoul, as the decline began when people started to move to towns in Ilsan and Bundang," a city official said. "Also, the country's low birthrate has affected Seoul's population trend."
Specifically, last year there was a large decrease in the number of foreign residents, as many migrant workers and foreign students left the country or failed to return due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
While the number of Koreans in Seoul dropped by 1 percent, or 60,642 people, in 2020 from 2019, the number of foreign residents plummeted 13.9 percent, or 39,253, during the same period.
Chinese nationals accounted for most of the decrease in foreign residents at 32,070. As ethnic Chinese usually come to Korea after obtaining H-2 work visas, the number of foreigners holding that type of visa dropped 35.4 percent. The number of foreigners holding D-2 visas, who are international students, also declined 16.8 percent.
Among Seoul's 25 districts, only Gangdong and Yeongdeungpo saw their populations increase.
The number of senior citizens aged 65 or older was 1.56 million, accounting for 15.8 percent of the total population in the capital, up 1 percentage point from 2019.
