It has been reported that 2.22 million foreigners are living in South Korea. That is 4.3% of the total population in Korea (51,779,203 people).

According to the "2019 Status of Foreign Residents in Local Governments" (as of November 1, 2019) released by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, the number of foreign residents (who do not have Korean nationality and children of foreign residents who acquired Korean nationality) in Korea increased 7.9 percent to 2,214,621 people.

The number of foreigners in Korea is greater than the population of Chungcheong Province (2,188,649 people) but slightly lower than Daegu (2,429,940 people). The number of foreigners who acquired Korean nationality was 185,728 people (8.4 percent), and 251,966 (11.4 percent) were children of foreign residents.

Breaking down the foreign population by region, 720,090 (32.5 percent) live in Gyeonggi Province, followed by 465,885 (21 percent) in Seoul, and 134,675 (6.1 percent) in Gyeongnam. By city, Ansan in Gyeonggi Province, had the largest number of foreign residents at 92,787 people. Following Ansan is Suwon (67,073 people), Hwaseong (65,040 people), and Siheung (59,634 people).

There are 95 cities, counties, and districts where more than 10,000 foreign residents live or account for more than 5 percent of the residents, including 23 in Gyeonggi Province, 17 in Seoul, 10 in South Gyeongsang Province, 9 in North Gyeongsang Province, and 7 in South Chungcheong Province.

Lee Jae Kwan, the head of the Ministry of Interior, Public Safety and Decentralization, stated, "We plan to support local governments on projects to create a basic infrastructure to support the settlement of foreigners in local communities. We plan to share and spread best practices so that foreign residents can settle and live well around the local communities.