92% of Koreans live in just 17% of the country

More than 9 in 10 South Koreans live in urban areas that account for less than one-fifth of the country’s land. Some 92.1 percent of the population lived in urban areas in 2025, even though those areas accounted for just 16.7 percent of the country’s territory, according to government data released Thursday. A total of 106,563 square kilometers of land had been designated for specific land-use purposes as of the end of last year, of which 17,740 square kilometers were classified as urban areas,