The number of people in South Korea with multicultural backgrounds has more than tripled in the past decade to reach 1.71 million as of November 2015, latest government data showed Tuesday.
This marks 3.4 percent of the county’s total population of 51 million.
The multicultural population has risen steadily, moving from 540,000 in 2006, to 1.57 million in 2014 and 1.71 million last year.
The tally includes foreign nationals, naturalized Koreans as well as their children.
Fifty-seven municipalities across the country had either at least 10,000 people with multicultural backgrounds or multicultural populations that took up over 5 percent of the total, according to data.
The city of Ansan in Gyeonggi Province has the largest multicultural population at 75,965, the data showed, followed by Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo district (57,000), Suwon city (51,258) and Guro district in Seoul (47,123).
About 68 percent of Korea’s multicultural population were concentrated in four areas -- Gyeonggi Province (32.1 percent), Seoul (23.9 percent), South Gyeongsang Province (6.6) and Incheon (5.2 percent).
Those with Chinese backgrounds accounted for a slight majority, 52.8 percent. Ethnic Koreans with Chinese nationality accounted for 37.1 percent of the total.
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