| Korean diaspora | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 동포 / 교포 |
| Hanja | 同胞 / 僑胞 |
| Revised Romanization | dongpo / gyopo |
| McCune–Reischauer | tongp'o / kyop'o |
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| 6.8 million (est.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mahayana Buddhism, Christianity, Cheondoism. Background of Confucianism and Korean shamanism.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] |
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The Korean diaspora consists of roughly seven million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korean peninsula, as well as more recent emigres from Korea. Nearly four-fifths of expatriate Koreans live in just three countries: China, the United States, and Japan.[1] Countries with greater than 0.5% Korean minorities are Japan, New Zealand, the United States, Kazakhstan, Canada, Uzbekistan and Australia.
Contents |
North Korea refers to Korean citizens living outside the Korean peninsula as haeoe gungmin (해외국민, "overseas citizens"), while South Korea uses the term jaeoe gungmin (재외국민, "citizens abroad").[12] Another broader term is gyopo (교포, also spelled kyopo); however, the term has come to have negative connotations as referring to people who, as a result of living as sojourners outside the "home country", has lost touch with their Korean roots. As a result, others prefer to use the term dongpo (동포, roughly "brethren" or "people of the same ancestry"). Dongpo has a more transnational implication, emphasising links among various overseas Korean groups, while gyopo has more of a purely national connotation referring to the Korean state.[13][14]
Prior to the modern era, Korea had been a territorially stable polity for centuries; as Rogers Brubaker and Jaeeun Kim describe it, "The congruence of territory, polity, and population was taken for granted".[15] Large-scale emigration from Korea began as early as the mid-1860s, mainly into the Russian Far East and Northeast China; these emigrants became the ancestors of the 2 million Koreans in China and several hundred thousand ethnic Koreans in Central Asia.[16][17]
During the Japanese colonial period of 1910-1945, Koreans were often recruited or forced into labour service to work in mainland Japan, Karafuto Prefecture (Sakhalin), and Manchukuo, especially in the 1930s and early 1940s; the ones who chose to remain in Japan at the end of the war became known as Zainichi Koreans, while the roughly 40 thousand who were trapped in Karafuto after the Soviet invasion are typically referred to as Sakhalin Koreans.[18][19] According to the statistics at Immigration Bureau of Japan, there were 901,284 Koreans resident in Japan as of 2005[update], of which 515,570 were permanent residents, and another 284,840 were naturalized citizens.[20][21] Koreans amount to 40.4% of the non-Japanese population of the country. Three-quarters of the Koreans living in Japan are Japanese-born, and most are legal aliens.
Aside from migration within the Empire of Japan or its puppet state of Manchukuo, some Koreans also escaped Japanese-ruled territory entirely, heading to Shanghai, a major centre of the Korean independence movement, or to the already-established Korean communities of the Russian Far East. However, the latter would find themselves deported to Central Asia in 1938.
Korea regained its independence in 1945 at the end of World War II, but was divided into North and South. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, ethnic Koreans in China (Chaoxianzu) became officially recognised as one of the 56 ethnic groups of the country. They are considered to be one of the "major minorities". Their population grew to about 2 million; they stayed mostly in northeastern China, where their ancestors had initially settled. Their largest population was concentrated in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, where they numbered 854,000 in 1997.[17][22]
Korean emigration to the United States is known to have begun as early as 1903, but the Korean American community did not grow to a significant size until after the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1965.[23] Between 1.5 and 2 million Koreans now live in the United States, mostly in metropolitan areas.[1][24] A handful are descended from laborers who migrated to Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A significant number are descended from orphans of the Korean War, in which the United States was a major ally of South Korea and provided the bulk of the United Nations troops that served there. Thousands were adopted by American (mostly Caucasian) families in the years following the war, when their plight was covered on television. The vast majority, however, immigrated or are descended from those who immigrated after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 abolished national immigration quotas.
Europe and Latin America were also minor destinations for post-war Korean emigration. Korean immigration to Latin America was documented as early as the 1950s; North Korean prisoners of war choose to emigrate to Chile in 1953 and Argentina in 1956 under the auspices of the Red Cross. However, the majority of Korean settlement occurred in the late 1960s. As the South Korean economy continued to expand in the 1980s, investors from South Korea came to Latin America and established small businesses in the textiles industry.[25] Brazil has Latin America's largest Koreatown in São Paulo; there are also Koreatowns in cities such as Buenos Aires, Argentina; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Lima, Peru; and Santiago, Chile. Mexico City's Korean population is estimated to be around 30,000. Korean immigrants are increasingly settling in urban centers of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
In the 1970s, however, Japan and the United States remained the top two destinations for South Korean emigrants, with each receiving more than a quarter of all emigration; the Middle East became the third most popular destination, with more than 800,000 Koreans going to Saudi Arabia between 1975 and 1985, and another 26,000 Koreans going to Iran. In contrast, aside from Germany (1.7% of all South Korean emigration in 1977) and Paraguay (1.0%), no European or Latin American destinations were even in the top ten for emigrants.[26]
Although immigration to the United States briefly became less attractive as a result of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, during which many Korean American immigrants saw their businesses destroyed by looters, the Los Angeles and New York City metropolitan areas still contain by far the largest populations of ethnic Koreans outside of Korea and continue to attract the largest share of Korean immigrants. In fact, the per capita Korean population of Bergen County, New Jersey, in the New York City Metropolitan Area, 6.3% by the 2010 United States Census,[27] is the highest of any county in the United States, with eight of the nation's top ten municipalities by percentage of Korean population;[28] while the concentration of Korean Americans in Palisades Park, New Jersey, within Bergen County, is the highest of any municipality in the United States,[29] at 52% of the population.[27] South Korean media reports on the riots increased public awareness of the long working hours and harsh conditions faced by immigrants to the United States in the 1990s.[30] Instead, with the development of the South Korean economy, the focus of emigration from Korea began to shift from developed nations towards developing nations. With the 1992 normalisation of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea, many citizens of South Korea started to settle instead in China, attracted by business opportunities generated by the reform and opening up of China and the low cost of living. Large new communities of South Koreans have formed in Beijing, Shanghai, and Qingdao; as of 2006[update], their population is estimated to be between 300,000 and 400,000.[31] There is also a small community of Koreans in Hong Kong, mostly expatriate businessmen and their families; according to Hong Kong's 2001 census, they numbered roughly 5,200, making them the 12th-largest ethnic minority group.[32] Southeast Asia has also seen an influx of South Koreans. Koreans in Vietnam have grown in number to around 30,000 since the 1992 normalisation of diplomatic relations, making them Vietnam's second-largest foreign community after the Taiwanese.[33] Korean migration to the Philippines has also increased due to the tropical climate and low cost of living compared to South Korea; 370,000 Koreans visited the country in 2004, and roughly 46,000 Korean expatriates live there permanently.[34] Though smaller, the number of Koreans in Cambodia has also grown rapidly, almost quadrupling between 2005 and 2009.[1] They mostly reside in Phnom Penh, with a smaller number in Siam Reap. They are largely investors involved in the construction industry, though there are also some missionaries and NGO workers.[35]
Koreans born or settled overseas have been migrating back to both North and South Korea ever since the restoration of Korean independence; perhaps the most famous example is Kim Jong-Il, born in Vyatskoye, Khabarovsk Krai, where his father Kim Il-sung had been serving in the Red Army.[36][37] Postwar migrations of Koreans from throughout the Japanese Empire back to the Korean peninsula were characterised both bureaucratically and popularly as "repatriation", a restoration of the congruence between the Korean population and its territory.[38] The pre-colonial Korean state had not clearly laid out the boundaries of who was a citizen; however, the Japanese colonial government had registered all Koreans in a separate family registry, a separation which continued even if an individual Korean migrated to Manchuria or Japan; thus North and South Korea had a clear legal definition of who was a repatriating Korean, and did not have to create any special legal categories of national membership for them, the way Germany had done for post-World War II German expellees.[39]
The largest-scale repatriation activities took place in Japan, where Chongryon sponsored the return of Zainichi Korean residents to North Korea; starting from late 1950s and early 1960s, with a trickle of repatriates continuing until as late as 1984, nearly 90,000 Zainichi Koreans resettled in the reclusive communist state, though their ancestral homes were in the South. However, word of the difficult economic and political conditions filtered back to Japan, decreasing the popularity of this option. Around one hundred such repatriates are believed to have later escaped from North Korea; the most famous is Kang Chol-Hwan, who published a book about his experience, The Aquariums of Pyongyang.[40][41] South Korea, however, was a popular destination for Koreans who had settled in Manchukuo during the colonial period; returnees from Manchukuo such as Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan had a large influence on the process of nation-building in South Korea.[42]
Until the 1980s, Soviet Koreans did not repatriate in any large numbers and played little role in defining the boundaries of membership in the Korean nation.[43] However, roughly 1,000 Sakhalin Koreans are also estimated to have independently repatriated to the North in the decades after the end of World War II, when returning to their ancestral homes in the South was not an option due to the lack of Soviet relations with the South and Japan's refusal to grant them transit rights. In 1985, Japan began to fund the return of Sakhalin Koreans to South Korea; however, only an additional 1,500 took this offer, with the vast majority of the population remaining on Sakhalin or moving to the Russian Far East instead.[44]
With the rise of the South Korean economy in the 1980s, economic motivations became increasingly prevalent in overseas Koreans' decisions of whether to repatriate and in which part of the peninsula to settle. 356,790 Chinese citizens have migrated to South Korea since the reform and opening up of China; almost two-thirds are estimated to be Chaoxianzu.[45] Similarly, some Koryo-saram from Central Asia have also moved to South Korea as guest workers, to take advantage of the high wages offered by the growing economy; remittances from South Korea to Uzbekistan, for example, were estimated to exceed USD100 million in 2005.[46] Return migration through arranged marriage is another option, portrayed in the 2005 South Korean film Wedding Campaign, directed by Hwang Byung-kook.[47] However, the Koryo-saram often face the most difficulty integrating into Korean society due to their poor command of the Korean language and the fact that their dialect, Koryo-mar, differs significantly from the Seoul dialect considered standard in the South.[46]
Until recently, return migration from the United States has been much less common than that from Japan or the former Soviet Union, as the economic push factor was far less than in 1960s Japan or post-Soviet collapse Central Asia. However, an increasing number of aspiring Korean American singers and actors, finding their career progress in Hollywood blocked, choose to go to South Korea through talent and modelling agencies; prominent examples include singer Brian Joo (of R&B duo Fly to the Sky) and actor Daniel Henney (who initially spoke no Korean).[48][49] [50]
| Continent | Country | MOFAT statistics, 2009[1] | Proportion of Korean diaspora | Number of adopted Koreans[51] | Year range for adoptions | Local census statistics | Year of census |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia | China | 2,336,771 | 34.25% | ||||
| Americas | United States | 2,102,283 | 30.81% | 107145 | 1953–2007 | 1555293 | 2007[24] |
| Asia | Japan | 912,770 | 13.38% | 226 | 1962–1982 | ||
| Americas | Canada | 223,322 | 3.27% | 2103 | 1967–2007 | ||
| Europe/Asia | Russia | 222,027 | 3.25% | 148,556 | 2002[3] | ||
| Asia | Uzbekistan | 175,939 | 2.58% | ||||
| Oceania | Australia | 125,669 | 1.84% | 3341 | 1969–2007 | 60873 | 2006[4] |
| Asia | Philippines | 115,400 | 1.69% | ||||
| Asia | Kazakhstan | 103,952 | 1.52% | 99700 | 1999[52] | ||
| Asia | Vietnam | 84,566 | 1.24% | ||||
| Americas | Brazil | 48,419 | 0.71% | ||||
| Europe | United Kingdom | 45,295 | 0.66% | 72 | 1958–1990 | ||
| Asia | Indonesia | 31,760 | 0.47% | ||||
| Europe | Germany | 31,248 | 0.46% | 2352 | 1965–2002 | ||
| Oceania | New Zealand | 30,792 | 0.45% | 559 | 1964–1984 | ||
| Americas | Argentina | 22,024 | 0.32% | ||||
| Asia | Thailand | 20,200 | 0.30% | ||||
| Asia | Kyrgyzstan | 18,810 | 0.28% | 19784 | 1999[53] | ||
| Europe | France | 14,738 | 0.22% | 11155 | 1968–2007 | ||
| Asia | Malaysia | 14,580 | 0.21% | ||||
| Asia | Singapore | 13,509 | 0.20% | ||||
| Europe | Ukraine | 13,001 | 0.19% | ||||
| Americas | Mexico | 12,072 | 0.18% | ||||
| Americas | Guatemala | 9,921 | 0.15% | ||||
| Asia | India | 8,337 | 0.12% | 3 | 1960–1964 | ||
| Americas | Paraguay | 5,229 | 0.08% | 2 | 1969 | ||
| Asia | Cambodia | 4,772 | 0.07% | ||||
| Europe | Italy | 4,203 | 0.06% | 382 | 1965–1981 | ||
| Africa | South Africa | 3,949 | 0.06% | ||||
| Europe | Spain | 3,647 | 0.05% | 5 | 1968 | ||
| Asia | Republic of China | 3,158 | 0.05% | 4 | 1967–1968 | ||
| Asia | United Arab Emirates | 3,114 | 0.05% | ||||
| Asia | Qatar | 2,365 | 0.03% | ||||
| Asia | Mongolia | 2,323 | 0.03% | ||||
| Americas | Chile | 2,249 | 0.03% | ||||
| Europe | Austria | 2,247 | 0.03% | ||||
| Europe | Switzerland | 2,141 | 0.03% | 1111 | 1968–1997 | ||
| Asia | Saudi Arabia | 2,014 | 0.03% | ||||
| Europe | Czech Republic | 1,780 | 0.03% | 1272 | 2009[54] | ||
| Asia | Tajikistan | 1,762 | 0.03% | ||||
| Europe | Netherlands | 1,722 | 0.03% | 4099 | 1969–2003 | 4561 | 2008[55] |
| Europe | Slovakia | 1,495 | 0.02% | ||||
| Europe | Sweden | 1,434 | 0.02% | 9221 | 1957–2007 | ||
| Americas | Ecuador | 1,418 | 0.02% | ||||
| Europe/Asia | Turkey | 1,396 | 0.02% | 1 | 1969 | ||
| Europe | Belarus | 1,265 | 0.02% | ||||
| Europe | Ireland | 1,146 | 0.02% | 12 | 1968–1975 | ||
| Asia | Kuwait | 1,058 | 0.02% | ||||
| Europe | Hungary | 1,053 | 0.02% | ||||
| Asia | Bangladesh | 1,046 | 0.02% | ||||
| Europe | Poland | 1,034 | 0.02% | 7 | 1970 | ||
| Africa | Egypt | 976 | 0.01% | ||||
| Oceania | Fiji | 950 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Nigeria | 920 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Myanmar | 888 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Libya | 854 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Sri Lanka | 854 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Peru | 812 | 0.01% | ||||
| Europe | Belgium | 743 | 0.01% | 3697 | 1969–1995 | ||
| Americas | Costa Rica | 730 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Colombia | 710 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Kenya | 707 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Oman | 699 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Bolivia | 640 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Iran | 614 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Israel | 560 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Laos | 547 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Nicaragua | 531 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Pakistan | 529 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Ghana | 519 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Dominican Republic | 518 | 0.01% | ||||
| Europe | Norway | 488 | 0.01% | 6274 | 1995–2007 | ||
| Europe | Romania | 456 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Angola | 455 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Turkmenistan | 438 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Honduras | 406 | 0.01% | ||||
| Europe | Armenia | 378 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Nepal | 374 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Tanzania | 360 | 0.01% | ||||
| Africa | Morocco | 358 | 0.01% | ||||
| Europe | Greece | 356 | 0.01% | ||||
| Asia | Jordan | 356 | 0.01% | ||||
| Americas | Venezuela | 325 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Panama | 306 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Denmark | 279 | 0.00% | 8679 | 1965–2005 | ||
| Americas | El Salvador | 272 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Uganda | 228 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Madagascar | 226 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Yemen | 222 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Papua New Guinea | 222 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Finland | 213 | 0.00% | 1 | 1984 | ||
| Africa | Ethiopia | 212 | 0.00% | 1 | 1961 | ||
| Asia | Bahrain | 195 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Algeria | 183 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Senegal | 170 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Tunisia | 170 | 0.00% | 1 | 1969 | ||
| Europe | Bulgaria | 170 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Botswana | 163 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Azerbaijan | 163 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Afghanistan | 159 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Portugal | 159 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Cameroon | 155 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Uruguay | 152 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Côte d'Ivoire | 141 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Zimbabwe | 136 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Moldova | 126 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Syria | 121 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Lebanon | 116 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Palau | 113 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Malawi | 113 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Brunei | 108 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Togo | 105 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Malta | 103 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 103 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Jamaica | 102 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Sudan | 99 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Gabon | 90 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Zambia | 84 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Mozambique | 78 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Albania | 72 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Serbia | 68 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Suriname | 66 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Iraq | 62 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Rwanda | 61 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Burkina Faso | 59 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Sierra Leone | 56 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Luxembourg | 54 | 0.00% | 554 | 1984–2007 | ||
| Asia | Timor-Leste | 52 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Croatia | 50 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Haiti | 47 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Vanuatu | 46 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Tonga | 46 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Latvia | 46 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Guinea | 43 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Solomon Islands | 42 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Lithuania | 41 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Liberia | 37 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Trinidad and Tobago | 37 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Gambia | 36 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Marshall Islands | 34 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Chad | 32 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Mauritania | 31 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Belize | 30 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Slovenia | 29 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Georgia | 28 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Federated States of Micronesia | 25 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Swaziland | 19 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Namibia | 19 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Maldives | 18 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Mali | 18 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Palestine | 15 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Congo | 14 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Niger | 14 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Equatorial Guinea | 13 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Cyprus | 11 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Mauritius | 11 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Macedonia | 10 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Iceland | 10 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Guinea-Bissau | 10 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Burundi | 9 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Central African Republic | 9 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Benin | 8 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Eritrea | 7 | 0.00% | ||||
| Asia | Bhutan | 7 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Barbados | 7 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 6 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Estonia | 5 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Saint Lucia | 5 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Montenegro | 3 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Comoros | 3 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | Monaco | 2 | 0.00% | ||||
| Africa | Cape Verde | 2 | 0.00% | ||||
| Oceania | Kiribati | 1 | 0.00% | ||||
| Europe | San Marino | 1 | 0.00% | ||||
| Americas | Guyana | 1 | 0.00% | ||||
| Total | 6,822,720 | 100% | |||||
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