Foreigners' favorability toward Korea hit an all-time high last year. The global spread of K-culture is seen as having boosted preference for Korea.
According to the "2025 Korea national image survey results" that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism released on the 20th, foreigners' favorability toward Korea last year was tallied at 82.3%. More than 8 out of those surveyed said Korea's overall image was "very positive" or "somewhat positive."
This is up 3.3 percentage points from the previous year, the highest level since the 2018 survey. It is the first time since 2021 (80.5%) that foreign favorability toward Korea has exceeded 80%.
By country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) showed the highest favorability toward Korea at 94.8%. Egypt (94%), the Philippines (91.4%), and Turkiye (90.2%) also exceeded 90%.
Favorability toward Korea in neighboring countries China and Japan also rose from the previous year. Chinese favorability toward Korea climbed 3.6 percentage points to 62.8%, while Japan rose 5.4 percentage points to 42.2%. It remains lower than in other countries, but the improvement trend is clear.
In particular, in Japan's case, favorability toward Korea stood at 20% in 2018 and 18.8% in 2019, but has steadily risen since, surpassing 40% for the first time last year.
The factor cited as having the most positive impact on favorability toward Korea was cultural content (45.2%). It was followed by modern lifestyle culture (31.9%), products and brands (28.7%), and economic level (21.2%).
Figures who had a positive impact on Korea's image included BTS (7.9%), Son Heung-min (5.8%), and Blackpink (4.7%) among the top ranks.
The main channels through which foreigners encounter Korea were video platforms (64.4%), followed by social media (SNS, 56.6%), internet sites (46.7%), and broadcasting (32.8%).
However, Koreans' own favorability toward their country was lower than that of foreigners. Koreans' favorability toward Korea rose 8.2 percentage points from the previous year to 60.4%, 21.9 percentage points below the global average.
The survey was conducted online over one month in Oct. last year, targeting 13,000 people aged 16 and older (500 per country) in 26 countries, including Korea.
Gong Hyeong-sik, head of public communication at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), said, "Through this survey, we were able to confirm the world's high favorability toward Korea and the influence of K-culture and K-content," and noted, "We will conduct in-depth analysis of the results through expert forums and support their utilization in various fields."