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The Korean people are one of the main east Asian ethnic groups of Mongoloid stock. Most Koreans live in Korea (the Korean peninsula) and speak the Korean language. Korea's population is one of the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous in the world, with the only minorities being very small Chinese communities in South and North Korea, and a very small Japanese one in North Korea.
According to recent estimates, the population of ethnic Koreans worldwide is:
- North Korea: 21,687,550
- South Korea: 47,470,969
- The United States: 2,057,546
- China: 2,043,578
- Japan: 660,214
- Russia and former Soviet republics: 486,857
- Canada : 110,000
- Latin America (Brazil in particular): 100,000
- Total: 74,616,714
Culture
Main article: Culture of Korea
Koreans in both South Korea and North Korea share many cultural aspects, but the political distinctions between the two countries result in regional differences in culture between the North and South.
There are around 70 million speakers of the Korean language worldwide.
Koreans in the former Soviet Union
Approximately 450,000 ethnic Koreans reside in the former USSR, primarily in the newly independent states of Central Asia. There are also large Korean communities in southern Russia (around Volgograd), the Caucasus, and southern Ukraine. These communities can be traced back to the Koreans who were living in the Russian Far East. In 1937, Stalin deported approximately 200,000 ethnic Koreans to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, on the official premise that the Koreans might act as spies for Japan. There is also a separate ethnic Korean community in the Russian island of Sakhalin, where Koreans brought in by Japan as labourers were stranded after the island came into Soviet hands after World War II.
As of January 1, 1998, 1,123,200 ethnic Koreans lived in Uzbekistan, amounting to 4.7% of the total country's population.
Probably as a consequence of these ethnic ties, South Korea was the second import partner of Uzbekistan, after Russia, and one of its largest foreign investors. The car manufacturer Daewoo set up a joint venture (August 1992) and a factory in Asaka city, Andizhan province, in Uzbekistan.
See also: Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Koreans in China
Koreans form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. It is considered one of the "major minorities".
They mostly occupy the north of China, especially in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, where they numbered 854,000 in 1997.
Koreans in Japan
Koreans in Japan are also refered to as Zainichi. There are 528,904 Koreans in Japan, amounting to 40.4% of the non-Japanese population of the country. 75% of the Japanese Koreans are Japanese-born, but most are legal aliens nevertheless.
See also: Ethnic issues in Japan
Koreans in other countries
Koreatowns can be found in New York (Koreatown, Manhattan) and Los Angeles with signs in Korean. There is also a Koreatown in London.
See also
External links
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