Page "Demographics of South Korea" Paragraph 26

Like other newly industrializing economies, South Korea experienced rapid growth of urban areas caused by the migration of large numbers of people from the countryside.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Seoul, by far the largest urban settlement, had a population of about 190, 000 people.

There was a striking contrast with Japan, where Edo ( Tokyo ) had as many as 1 million inhabitants and the urban population comprised as much as 10 % to 15 % of the total during the Tokugawa Period ( 1600 – 1868 ).

During the closing years of the Choson Dynasty and the first years of Japanese colonial rule, the urban population of Korea was no more than 3 % of the total.

After 1930, when the Japanese began industrial development on the Korean Peninsula, particularly in the northern provinces adjacent to Manchuria, the urban portion of the population began to grow, reaching 11. 6 % for all of Korea in 1940.