South Korea

한국

An infographic atlas of South Korea, built only from official numbers.

Twelve plates on the Korean economy, state, spending, trade, markets, people, standing in the world, demography, safety, household debt, mortality and migration, each drawn on the same panels, units and scales as every other country in the atlas, so they can be laid over one another. Every number comes from the agency that computed it, every figure is generated from a CSV committed to this repository, and every caveat that would make a reader wrong is written down.

Where things stand

The plates

  1. Four panels on the Korean economy, 2006–2026. Real GDP growth is positive every year except 2020 (-0.7%) and is 1.1% in 2025, slower only in 2009 and 2020. GDP per person (World Bank, current dollars, log scale) rises from about US$22,600 to US$36,200, with dips in 2009 and 2022 caused by the won. Consumer price inflation falls to 0.4% in 2019, peaks at 5.1% in 2022 and returns to near the 2% target. Unemployment stays between 2.7% and 4.0% throughout. Plate 01

    The Korean Economy

    Real growth, income per person, prices and jobs, on the same scales as every other country.

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    20062025
    1.1% Real growth 2025
    2.1% Inflation 2025
  2. Four panels on Korean public finances. General government revenue and expenditure are drawn from the IMF from 2012 and from the Bank of Korea national accounts before that, as separate segments. Revenue exceeds spending until 2019; spending is higher from 2020. The balance is -2.5% of GDP in 2020 and -2.6% in 2024. Gross debt (IMF, the same as Korea's D2) rises from 33.5% of GDP in 2012 to 52.4% in 2025, and central and local government debt, D1, from 27.0% to 48.8%. Interest paid stays between 1% and 2% of GDP, 1.42% in 2025, but only 0.3% net of the interest the state receives. Plate 02

    Public Finances

    What general government raises and spends as a share of GDP, and what the gap does to debt and interest.

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    20122025
    52.4% GDP Gross debt (IMF) 2025
    -2.3% GDP Balance 2025
  3. Four panels on Korean government spending. Outlays by function, stacked in seven groups, rise from 27.5% of GDP in 2006 to 35.3% in 2024, and social protection grows most, from 4.2% to 9.2%; all other functions together are roughly flat. Whole-economy investment stays near 30% of GDP; R&D alone is 4.94% of GDP in 2023, second only to Israel. Government investment runs at 4–5% of GDP, peaking at 6.2% in the 2009 stimulus. Plate 03

    Where the Money Goes

    General government outlays by function, and the investment the economy and the state make.

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    20062024
    35.3% GDP Total outlays 2024
    9.2% GDP Social protection 2024
  4. Four panels on Korean trade. Exports of goods and services rise from 34.5% of GDP in 2006 to a 52.0% peak in 2012 and stand at 45.8% in 2025; imports go from 33.9% to 40.6%. The trade balance is in surplus except for a small deficit in 2008 and 0.0% in 2022, the year of the energy bill. China's share of goods exports falls from 26.8% in 2018 to 18.4% in 2025 while the United States rises to 17.3%, and Vietnam overtakes Japan. The lens panel shows the main export products at five snapshot years, with semiconductors at US$143 billion in 2025. Plate 04

    Foreign Trade

    A manufacturer that exports more than 40% of GDP: semiconductors, cars and ships, and a market shifting from China to the United States.

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    20062025
    45.8% GDP Exports 2025
    US$ 77bn Goods balance 2025
  5. Four panels on Korean markets. The Bank of Korea base rate (year-end) falls to 0.50% in 2020 and rises to 3.50% in 2023. The ten-year government bond yield falls from 5.15% in 2006 to a low of 1.50% in 2020 and is 2.89% in 2025. The won, as an index with 2006 = 100 where up is stronger, stands at 66.9 in 2025: the annual average went from ₩951 to ₩1,421 per dollar. The KOSPI in dollars reaches 189.8 in 2025, far behind the S&P 500 at 482.7. Plate 05

    Money & Markets

    The base rate, the bond yield, the won, and the KOSPI in dollars: the currency is half of the story.

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    20062025
    3.00% Base rate latest
    2.89% 10-year yield 2025
  6. Four panels on living standards in Korea. The Gini coefficient (0–100) comes from two surveys and is drawn as two separate lines, never joined; on the current survey it falls from 38.7 in 2011 to 32.5 in 2024. Relative poverty, below half the median income, falls from 18.5% to 15.3%; on the World Bank's US$8.30 a day line it is under 1%. The minimum wage, converted at the government's 209 hours a month and the year's average exchange rate, rises from US$681 a month in 2006 to US$1,589 in 2021 and then holds near US$1,500 as the won weakens. The lens shows poverty at 65 and over: 35.9% after transfers in 2024, against 54.9% before them. Plate 06

    People

    A rich country with a poor old age: falling inequality next to the OECD's worst elderly poverty.

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    20112024
    35.9% Poverty at 65+ latest
    15.3% Relative poverty latest
  7. Four panels placing Korea internationally. GDP in current dollars grows from US$1,095 billion in 2006 to US$1,872 billion in 2025 (log scale). The Human Development Index rises from 0.871 to 0.937, crossing the 0.900 line in 2012. The Corruption Perceptions Index score goes from 56 in 2012 to 64 in 2024 and 63 in 2025; the years before 2012, on the old 0–10 scale, are drawn paler, multiplied by ten. Official reserves grow from US$239 billion to US$428 billion in 2025, and Korea has been a net creditor to the rest of the world since 2014. Plate 07

    Korea in the World

    The size of the economy in dollars, human development, how the world scores Korea for integrity, and the reserves.

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    20062025
    US$ 1,872bn GDP 2025
    63/100 CPI score latest
  8. Four panels on Korean demography. The population, indexed to 2006, peaks at 51.84 million in 2020, and the official 2024 projection has 36.2 million by 2072; 20.3% of people are 65 or older in 2025. The total fertility rate hits a world-low 0.721 in 2023 and recovers slightly to 0.799 in 2025, far below the replacement level of 2.1. The crude birth and death rates per 1,000 cross in 2020. Natural increase is negative from 2020 (-2.1 per 1,000 in 2025), while net international migration is positive in every year except 2021 (-1.3), when the borders closed. Plate 08

    Korea's Demographic Transition

    The lowest fertility rate ever recorded in peacetime, and a population that peaked in 2020.

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    • social/migration.csvStatistics Korea — International Migration Statistics, via e-National Indicators · 2006-2026
    • social/population.csvStatistics Korea — Population Projections (2024 revision) · 2000-2072
    • social/vital.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Vital Statistics · 2006-2026
    20062025
    0.799 Fertility rate 2025
    51.7M Population 2025
  9. Four panels on violent and accidental death. The homicide rate is drawn on a log scale: Statistics Korea's count of deaths from assault over the same release's own denominator, the mid-year registered population. It falls from 1.01 per 100,000 in 2014 to 0.48 in 2025 (246 deaths), with UNODC's series also near 1. Suicide peaks at 31.7 per 100,000 in 2011 and is 27.8 in 2025, the highest in the OECD. Road deaths (police count) fall from 13.1 to 4.9 per 100,000. The lens shows workplace accident deaths per 100,000 insured workers, down from 9.6 to 3.8, while the number of deaths, which includes occupational disease, does not fall: 2,238 in 2006, 2,248 in 2025. Plate 09

    Safety

    One of the safest countries in the world from other people, and the most dangerous in the OECD from oneself.

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    • social/homicide.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Causes of Death Statistics · 2014-2025
    • social/mortality.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Causes of Death Statistics · 2006-2026
    • social/road.csvNational Police Agency, via e-National Indicators · 2006-2026
    • social/security_intl.csvUNODC (homicide) and WHO (suicide, road deaths), via the World Bank · 2006-2023
    • social/vital.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Vital Statistics · 2006-2026
    • social/workplace.csvMinistry of Employment and Labour, via e-National Indicators · 2006-2026
    20062025
    27.8/100k Suicide rate 2025
    4.9/100k Road deaths 2025
  10. Four panels on Korean household credit. Household debt on the BIS measure (households and non-profits, all lenders) rises from 65.0% of GDP to a 98.6% peak in 2021 and is 88.1% in 2025; the Bank of Korea's narrower household credit series runs lower, at 73.9%. The stock is ₩1,979 trillion at the end of 2025. New mortgage and unsecured lending rates follow the base rate to a trough around 2020 and jump within two years. Bank loan delinquency stays low throughout, with households peaking at 1.1% in 2012. The lens shows the BIS household debt service ratio, up from 9.9% of disposable income in 2014 to 12.2% in 2023. Plate 10

    Household Debt & the Price of Credit

    Korean households owe almost as much as the whole economy produces in a year. What they pay for it, and how much of it goes unpaid.

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    20062025
    88.1% GDP Household debt (BIS) latest
    11.8% Debt service ratio latest
  11. Four panels on deaths in Korea. The crude death rate rises from 5.0 per 1,000 in 2006 to a pandemic peak of 7.28 in 2022 and is 7.13 in 2025. Excess deaths, against the 2015–2019 average of 287,237 a year, reach +29.8% in 2022; the measure is not age-adjusted, so ageing alone tilts it upward. COVID-19 deaths, counted from death certificates, peak at 61.0 per 100,000 in 2022 (31,280 deaths). The lens shows the big killers per 100,000: cancer, the largest, from 134.8 to 177.1; pneumonia from 9.4 to 60.8, closing on heart disease; and stroke down from 61.7 to 48.7. Plate 11

    Mortality

    Deaths per head rise because Korea is older; the pandemic sits on top of that.

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    • social/covid.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Causes of Death Statistics · 2020-2026
    • social/mortality.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Causes of Death Statistics · 2006-2026
    • social/vital.csvStatistics Korea / Ministry of Data and Statistics — Vital Statistics · 2006-2026
    20062025
    712.6/100k Deaths per 100,000 2025
    49,006 COVID-19 deaths 2020–2025 · total
  12. Four panels on migration in South Korea. Immigration and emigration count Korean and foreign citizens entering or leaving for more than 90 days; in 2025 they are 13.3 and 11.8 per 1,000 residents. Net migration is negative only in 2021, when the borders closed. The register census counts 1.752 million resident foreign citizens (3.4%) in 2022 and 2.043 million (3.9%) in 2024, at 1 November; this is citizenship, not birthplace. The lens splits the same >90-day net flow between Korean and foreign citizens. Plate 12

    Migration

    People who enter or leave for more than 90 days, and resident foreign citizens counted by the census.

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    20062025
    74,382 Net migration 2025
    3.9% Foreign-citizen share latest