1 PLANNING PRACTICE IN SOUTH KOREA Seo Hwan Lim, May 2014 GENERAL COUNTRY INFORMATION South Korea constitutes the southern part of the South Korean Peninsula which is approximately 1,100 km long from north to south and 300 km wide from east to west. It is located in the Far East Asia, and shares land borders with North South Korea to the north and overseas borders with China to the west and Japan to the east. It lies in the north temperate zone with a predominantly mountainous terrain. South Koreais a very densely populated country with 50 million residents distributed over some 100,000 km 2 . It is highly urbanized country: 90% of its population lives in cities and 50% lives in large cities with a population of one million or more. Administratively, the country is divided into seven Metropolitan Cities and nine Provinces as shown in Figure 3. The capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of 10 million. Figure 1. Location of South South Korea Fast facts (2012) 1 - Total area: 100,188 km 2 - Total population: 50,004,000 - Annual population growth: 0.43 % - Unemployment rate: - GDP : 1.130 trillion (current USD) - GNI per capita: 22,670 (current USD) - Annual real GDP growth rate: 2% Settlements structure(2012) 2 - Population density: 500/km 2 - Urban population : 46,382,000 - Cities with half million or more : 20 - Cities with one million or more: 9 - Capital city: Seoul (9,976,000) - Second city: Busan (3,445,000) Figure 2 Topographical Map Figure 3 Administrative Map 1) Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation(2013), Annual Report on the Planning and Utilization of National Territory submitted to the Regular Session of the National Assembly 2013(South Korean) except for Data on GDP, which are based on World Bank Data (data.worldbank.org) 2) Ibid. GYEONGSANGBUK PROVINCE GYEONGSANGNAM PROVINCE GANGWON- PROVINCE GYEONGGI- PROVINVE CHUNGCHEONG BUK- PROVINCE CHUNGCHEONGNAM- PROVINCE JEOLLABUK PROVINCE JEOLLANAM PROVINCE JEJU SPECIAL AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE NORTH SOUTH KOREA JAPAN 1. SEOUL SPECIAL CITY 2. INCHEON METROPOLITAN CITY 3. DAEJEON METROPOLITAN CITY 4. DAEGU METROPOLITAN CITY 5. ULSAN METROPOLITAN CITY 6. BUSAN METROPOLITAN CITY 7. GWANGJU METROPOLITAN CITY 8. SEJONG SPECIAL AUTONOMOUS CITY