Last year, 92% of the population was found to live in cities, accounting for 16.5% of the total land area.
On the 23rd, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Land and Geospatial InformatiX Corporation (LX) announced the '2024 Urban Planning Status Statistics' containing this information.
The urban planning status statistics are national approved statistics that are compiled and published annually by local governments, managing land use districts, growth management zones, development permit activities, and the status of urban and county planning facilities. They are utilized in establishing urban policies.
The area of urban regions as of last year was 17,639 square kilometers, which is 16.5% of the total land area (land use district basis) of 106,567 square kilometers. Of the registered population of 51.22 million, 92.1%, or 47.15 million, reside in urban areas.
The population ratio in urban areas has sharply increased from 39.7% in 1960 to 88.3% in 2000, and has maintained over 90% since 2005 (90.1%).
Last year, the area of land use districts increased by 0.3% (356 square kilometers) compared to 2019 (106,211 square kilometers) due to factors such as land reclamation projects.
Outside urban areas, the classifications include ▲ Managed area 27,342 square kilometers (25.7%) ▲ Agricultural and forestry area 49,189 square kilometers (46.2%) ▲ Natural environment conservation area 11,872 square kilometers (11.1%) ▲ Undesignated area 525 square kilometers (0.5%).
Compared to 2019, residential areas within urban regions increased by 83 square kilometers (3.1%), commercial areas by 10 square kilometers (2.8%), and industrial areas by 58 square kilometers (4.8%). In contrast, green areas decreased by 76 square kilometers (0.6%).
The growth management zones to prevent indiscriminate development expanded 13.7 times in five years. Introduced in 2014 to prevent indiscriminate development, there were 11,975 locations covering 4,259 square kilometers last year.
Development permits totaled over 186,000, continuing a downward trend for the last three years. The development permits for constructing buildings and changing the purpose of rice fields and farmland stood at 186,080 last year.
The construction of buildings (90,769 cases, 48.8%) was the most common, followed by land modification (50,949 cases, 27.4%), and installation of structures (27,401 cases, 14.7%).
Nationwide, there are 366,000 urban and county planning facilities, such as roads, parks, and comprehensive medical facilities, accounting for 7,196 square kilometers.
Long-term undeveloped urban and county planning facilities, which have not undergone land compensation for over ten years, total 340 square kilometers, a decrease of 63.9% (603 square kilometers) compared to ten years ago.