Stats on Seoul

Seoul is one of the great cities of the smartphone wars. Think Paris, World War 1. Without the death and destruction, obviously. Seoul is home to some of the major players in the smartphone wars, like Samsung and LG. It's population are early adopters. It's economy is well-connected and growing.

New Geography takes a look at what is now the world's third largest metro area. It is one of the few cities in the developed world that is both a leader in technology -- and growing, rapidly.

Seoul has become the world's third largest metropolitan area. The jurisdictions making out the metropolitan area, the provincial level municipality of Seoul (which is the national capital), the province of Gyeonggi and the provincial level municipality of Incheon now have a population of approximately 23.6 million people. This is third only to Tokyo – Yokohama, which has a population of approximately 40 million and Jabotabek (Jakarta), which is approaching 30 million. While international metropolitan area population estimates should be taken with a "grain of salt," (Note 1: Metropolitan Areas) the rise of Seoul is nearly unprecedented in the high-income world.

South Korea today has a higher GDP per capita than Spain and New Zealand and less than 10 percent behind the European Union, on which it is gaining quickly. As the capital, the Seoul is a prosperous metropolitan area in a prosperous country. Seoul’s population density is among the highest of the world’s affluent urban areas. With population density of 27,000 people per square mile (10,400 per square kilometer), Seoul ranks second in the high income world among urban areas of more than 5 million people, trailing only Hong Kong, which is more than twice as dense. Thus, Seoul is more than twice as dense as Tokyo-Yokohama, three times as dense as Paris and four times as dense as Los Angeles or Toronto, the densest urban regions in North America.

[Note: I believe that smartphones are eradicating the barriers of distance. However, smartphones are simultaneously elevating the importance of place. This means South Korea, connected with the world, yet brimming with young smartphone users, nearly tripping over one another, should become a leader in future technologies and platforms. If not, something is wrong with how Asia functions.]