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Northgate, Oakland, California

Koreatown
Korean Peninsula topographic map.png
 South Korea
 North Korea
Koreatowns represent an overseas Korean diaspora and culture from the Koreas
Hangul 코리아타운 or 한인타운 or 한인촌 or 한인마을 or 한인동네 or 한인거리
Hanja 코리아타운 or 韓人타운 or 韓人村 or 韓人마을 or 韓人동네 or 韓人거리
Revised Romanization Koriataun or Hanintaun or Haninchon or Hanin Ma-eul or Hanin Dongne or Hanin Geori
McCune–Reischauer K'oriat'aun or Hanint'aun or Haninch'on or Hanin Maŭl or Hanin Tongne or Hanin Kŏri
Overseas Koreans
한민족 Hanminjok (韓民族)
Total population
(7,012,492 (2013))
Regions with significant populations
 China 2,573,928
 United States 2,091,432
 Japan 892,704
 Canada 205,993
 Russia 176,411
 Uzbekistan 173,832
 Australia 156,865
 Kazakhstan 105,483
 Philippines 88,102
 Vietnam 86,000
 Brazil 49,511
 United Kingdom 44,749
 Indonesia 40,284
 Germany 33,774
 New Zealand 30,527
 Argentina 22,580
 Singapore 20,330
 Thailand 20,000
 Kyrgyzstan 18,403
 Malaysia 14,000
 France 14,000
 Hong Kong 13,288
 Ukraine 13,083
 Guatemala 12,918
 Mexico 11,364
 India 10,397
 United Arab Emirates 9,728
 Saudi Arabia 5,145
 Paraguay 5,126
 Cambodia 4,372
 Taiwan 4,304
Others 77,147
Languages
Korean, various local languages
Related ethnic groups
Korean people

A Koreatown (Korean: 코리아타운 Koliataun), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside of the Korean Peninsula.

Koreatowns as an Asian ethnic enclave have only been in existence since the mid 1860s as Korea had been a territorially stable polity for centuries; as Jaeeun Kim describe it, "The congruence of territory, polity, and population was taken for granted". Large-scale emigration from Korea were only mainly into the Russian Far East and Northeast China; these emigrants became the ancestors of the 2 million Koreans in China and several hundred thousand ethnic Koreans in Central Asia.

Koreatowns in the western countries such as the United States, Canada have only been in place much later with the Los Angeles Koreatown receiving official recognition in 2008. Also many Koreatowns are not officially sanctioned where the only evidence of such enclaves exist as clusters of Korean stores with Korean signage existing only on the storefronts. In the 1992 Los Angeles riots, many Korean businesses were targeted where the signage only served to point out targets for rioters. In Philadelphia's Koreatown, anti-Korean sentiment was so strong that official signage was often vandalized as residents protested the "official recognition" of such areas, making many Koreatowns across the western countries never having official statuses that many Chinatowns receive today. Many Koreatowns today exist in a suburban setting as opposed to the urban settings of Chinatown mainly because many ethnic Koreans, especially in the western countries, fear crime that is often associated with the city dwellings and the higher quality of schools as education is often a top priority, which is why the Philadelphia Koreatowns exist in suburban settings such as Cheltenham, Pennsylvania instead of its original location in the Olney section of Philadelphia.


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Wikipedia

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