Population of Seoul

In 2000, 9,895,217 people, or nearly one-fourth South Korea’s population, lived in Seoul.

Migration from rural to urban areas has increased throughout South Korea since 1945, and Seoul has been the largest recipient of these migrants.

From a population of less than 1 million in 1945, Seoul grew rapidly after the Korean War (1950-1953).

The population exceeded 2 million by 1960, 5 million by 1970, 8 million by 1980, and 10 million by 1988.

In 1995 the city’s population density was about 16,900 persons per sq km (about 43,700 per sq mi).

Like South Korea as a whole, Seoul has a homogeneous population with only a very small percentage of people of non-Korean descent, mostly foreign visitors and resident Chinese.

Seoul’s rapid population growth has created severe strains on its infrastructure and environment, including traffic congestion, housing shortages, and water and air pollution.

Seoul has 1.65 million registered vehicles, of which about 70 percent are passenger cars.

The subway system, first built in 1974 and greatly expanded in the 1980s, carries 5.32 million passengers every day.

Plans to expand the subway system still further show little sign of easing the problem of traffic congestion, which causes air and noise pollution, serious accidents, and many inconveniences in the city.

To relieve overcrowding in Seoul, apartments were built for urban dwellers in the early 1970s.

Multistory apartment buildings now sprawl in all directions from Seoul, creeping onto the surrounding hillsides. More than half of Seoul’s 1.7 million households live in apartment buildings.

In the late 1980s the South Korean government began to address the issue of environmental pollution through various projects, including cleaning up the heavily polluted Han River and enacting pollution restrictions on industry and private vehicles.

While these projects have achieved some degree of success, pollution, especially from automobiles and factories, is still a serious detriment to the quality of life in Seoul.