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Came across some interesting statistics in the Bible Wikipedia measuring the GDP and GDP per capita of each province and metropolitan city in South Korea. There were some somewhat surprising results, I assumed Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, Busan and the metropolitan cities would lead the way in terms of both GDP and GDP per capita. But, that’s not necessarily the case.

In terms of GDP, Seoul with a total GDP of $US221,659 million in 2007 (which is comparable with that of Portugal) led the way followed by Busan, Gyeonggi-do and the highly industrialised Gyeongsang provinces. However, when you look at GDP per capita, there are interesting results:

The industrial city of Ulsan leads the way with a GDP per capita of $US44,511, comparable with that of the US itself, well la-di-da! Followed by Chungnam with a per capita income comparable with that of little ole New Zealand, and followed by the biggest surprise of all, my Korean home province of Jeonnam with a GDP per capita of $US26,373, comparable with that of Greece – well they both hug the coastline and have a healthy love for seafood! This is very surprising as Jeolla province, in particular Jeonnam has always been a rural, agricultural outpost and not particularly wealthy at all. Though, I imagine large industrial plants such as nearby Gwangyang’s POSCO plant have contributed largely to its newly-found relative affluence.

On the other end of the scale I was surprised not only to see the third and fifth largest cities, Daegu and Gwangju, at the bottom but, also by the huge variance in GDP per capita across this small nation. According to these figures, Daegu and Gwangju are very poor indeed compared with Ulsan, Chungnam and Jeonnam. Daegu has a GDP per capita of just $US12,931, comparable with that of Russia, ouch! Gwangju isn’t much better with a GDP per capita of $US14,711, similar to that of Poland. Having lived in Gwangju for six months I did notice that it is a relatively poor city compared with other parts of South Korea though am surprised by the scale of its relative poverty, along with that of Daegu, where from my several visits I would have never assumed its as poor as it is. Seoul also was a surprise for me as I assumed it would lead the GDP per capita figures but it only comes in fifth. I assume this is largely due to having a fairly large proportion of residents being recent and not-so-recent in-country migrants from poorer parts of the country looking for a better life.

The figures are surprising, largely because of the huge imbalance between the most prosperous and least prosperous regions. Hopefully, the Government is doing a lot to address this imbalance as figures such as these suggest problems could well arise in the future if such startling wealth imbalances – with Ulsan being almost four times more prosperous than nearby Daegu – are not adequately addressed.