SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Over half of South Korea's total population resided in the Seoul metropolitan area, with more than half of employees also living in the area, Yonhap news agency said Thursday citing government data.
The number of residents registered in the capital Seoul, its surrounding Gyeonggi Province and the western city of Incheon stood at 26,014,265 at the end of December 2023, accounting for 50.7 percent of the total population.
The Seoul residents had been on the decline in recent years, but those in Gyeonggi and Incheon had recently risen, contributing to the higher proportion of the metropolitan population.
The proportion of the metropolitan population to the total population increased from 50.0 percent in 2019 to 50.4 percent in 2021 and 50.7 percent in 2023.
The number of employees living in the metropolitan area reached about 14.48 million at the end of December 2023, taking up 51.6 percent of the country's combined workers.
The metropolitan area-based businesses made up 49.1 percent of the country's total in 2022. ■
