Korean Diaspora
The Korean diaspora consists of around 7 million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korean Peninsula, as well as more recent émigrés from Korea. Over 70% of overseas Koreans live in just three countries: China, the United States and Japan. Other countries with significant Korean minorities include Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Canada. Prior to the modern era, Korea had been a territorially stable society for centuries. During the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), many poor Korean farmers migrated to China and Russia in the late nineteenth century; these emigrants became the ancestors of the two million Koreans in China and several hundred thousand ethnic Koreans in Central Asia (Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan). During the Japanese colonization of Korea (1910-1945), Japan forced many Koreans into labor service to work in mainland Japan. Korean emigration to the United States is known to have begun as early as 1903, but the Korean American community did not grow to a significant size until after the passage of the Immigrations Reform Act of 1965. Roughly 2 million Koreans now live in the United States. Europe and Latin America constituted minor destinations for post-war Korean emigration. Germany represents the largest Korean community in Europe while London has the largest European Koreatown. Please click on the sidebar link to explore Korean diaspora communities of some of these countries in greater detail.
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*Currently Available Statistics (New World Encyclopedia)