• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.549-563
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to identify the urban structure in Korea. Though there is research regarding urbanization, there is little regarding the urban structure of the Korean economy. In this paper, two issues will be discussed: the measurements of inter-city and intra-city structure in Korean Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), which is newly defined. First, the city size rank rule, widely known as Zipf’s Law, will illustrate Korean the inter-city structure. The city size rank rule gives an idea whether Korean MSAs are balanced or not. In general, Korea has a heavy concentration in the Seoul MSA in terms of population. It could be either that the Seoul MSA is too big or that the Busan MSA is too small or both. If this is the primacy problem, a decentralization policy is necessary. On the other hand, if it is a second city problem, development policies for the Busan MSA and Daegu MSA are more important. Next, the Korean intra-city structure will be discussed. The evolutions of the MSAs explain intra-city structure by analyzing population density function and the housing price function. Some large MSAs such as Seoul and Busan have experienced urban sprawl, while other MSAs have experienced urban concentration. The population density gradient by the distance from the ARC GIS shows the growth rate of a city. According to the Spatial Mismatch Index between population and employment, the Ulsan MSA, Gwangju MSA, and Suwon-Hwaseong-Osan MSA are more mismatched, while the Daejeon MSA and Incheon MSA are less mismatched. Therefore, these analyses of Korean urban structure are meaningful in developing regional policy.