The largest cities of South Korea have an autonomous status equivalent to that of provinces. Seoul, the largest city and capital, is classified as a teukbyeolsi (Special City), while the next six-largest cities are classified as gwangyeoksi (Metropolitan Cities). Smaller cities are classified as si ("cities") and are under provincial jurisdiction, at the same level as counties.

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City status

Article 10 of the Local Autonomy Act defines the standards under which a populated area may become a city: an area which is predominantly urbanised and has a population of at least 50,000; a gun which has an urbanised area with a population of at least 50,000; or a gun which has a total population of at least 150,000 and multiple urbanised areas each with a population of at least 20,000. Under Article 3 of the Local Autonomy Act, a city with a population of less than 500,000 may create administrative subdivisions in the form of dong in its urbanised area and eup or myeon in its rural area, while a city with a population of more than 500,000 may create administrative subdivisions in the form of non-autonomous gu.

Classifications for large municipal cities

The national government can designate cities of at least 500,000 inhabitants as special status cities. This status expands the scope of administrative authority delegated from the provincial government to the city government.

Big city

A big city is a city (other than a special city or a metropolitan city) that has a population greater than 500,000, and has been designated by an order of the national government under Article 198 of the Local Autonomy Act. Big municipal cities are given the power to subdivide themselves into non-autonomous districts. Due its legal status as an administrative city, Jeju City cannot be designated as a "big city" under the Local Autonomy Law, despite having an estimated population exceeding 500,000 as of 2022. The designation of "administrative city" was created by the law which granted special self-governing status to Jeju Province; that law specifically states that the Local Autonomy Act would not apply to administrative cities. As such, Jeju City does not enjoy special autonomy and only has the same legal powers as the much smaller Seogwipo. The administrative authority of Jeju City is trying to expand the scope of administrative authority delegated from the provincial government to the city government.

Special-status city

A special-status city is a subclass of big municipal city that has a population greater than 1,500,000.

List

Cities by population

This is a list cities of South Korea by population including provincial-level divisions: special city (특별시/特別市) and metropolitan cities (광역시/廣域市), and municipal-level division: cities (시/市). Other municipal-level divisions: counties (군/郡 which have populations under 50K) and districts (구/區) are not included. All population data are based on the South Korean population and housing census 2000–2020.

Renamed cities

Dissolved cities

Claimed cities

Gallery

Sources