Interior ministry expands population-decline areas to 92 after five-year review

The interior ministry said Wednesday it has redesignated South Korea's population-decline areas for the first time in five years, expanding the list to 92 regions from the 89 first named in 2021, while creating a new category to keep support flowing to areas whose populations have begun to recover.

The redesignation adds Gyeonggi Province's Dongducheon, South Gyeongsang Province's Tongyeong, Busan's Geumjeong district, North Gyeongsang Province's Yecheon and Chilgok counties, and Incheon's Jemulpo district, formerly Dong district, to the population-decline or population-concern lists. The number of population-concern areas, a lighter designation, was unchanged at 18. Yeonggwang County in South Jeolla Province, Busan's Dong district, Daegu's Seo district, Dongducheon, Tongyeong and North Gyeongsang Province's Gyeongju will be classified as "population vitality plus" areas, retaining existing support for five years.

The ministry revised the selection criteria, adding urbanisation rates, the number of employed people and the size of the daytime population to average annual population change, ageing, the youth-to-child ratio, the crude birth rate, net youth migration and fiscal independence, bringing the population vitality index to nine indicators from six. It will also shift the roughly 1 trillion won ($744 million) a year Local Extinction Response Fund away from building hardware facilities toward projects linking facilities with content.

"This redesignation reflects the population and regional conditions that have changed over the past five years more accurately, and we have improved the system so that regions whose conditions have improved can maintain continuity in policy support," Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung said. Yoon said the government will focus cross-ministerial support suited to local conditions on population-decline areas, while backing "population vitality plus" regions so that the recovery they have achieved is not interrupted. "We will help regions create their own vitality and grow," he said.

The ministry cited an October 2025 National Assembly budget office analysis warning that cutting support at the point where a policy begins to show results would undermine the durability of that effect and risk deeper population outflow and regional extinction.

A set of 44 special provisions and tax measures under the Special Act on Support for Population-Decline Areas remains in operation, including tax breaks for second homes in provincial areas, expanded acquisition tax cuts for young people buying their first home, and relaxed employment and residency rules for foreign workers.

The ministry plans to draw up a second basic plan for responding to population decline, covering 2027 to 2031, to set out the national direction of the response.