The Korean diaspora at least includes/understands five million people (according to a narrow definition of the concept of anybody of Korean origin), present in particular in China, with the Japan, in Russia, with the Kazakhstan and in America (the United States, Brésil, and Canada).

The Korean diaspora thus constitutes one of the three components of the Korean population, with the North-Koreans and the South-Koreans, clearly identified like such in the bringing together in progress between the two Korean governments.

The 2 million Koreans living in China constitutes one of the 55 national minorities of the country and is mainly present in the North-East of the country, close to the border with the North Korea (see the detailed article Korean Diaspora in China).

With the the United States, 630  000 Americans declared, at the time of the census of 1990, to use the Korean on their premises. South Korea indeed represented 4  % of flows of immigration in the United States between 1961 and 1980.

With the Canada, the Agency of Korean international cooperation (more known under its English name: International Korean Agency Co-operation, or KOICA), South Korean government organization responsible for the immigration policy, has an office in Toronto. The KOICA considers the population Korean in Canada with 100  000 people, distributed mainly in the anglophone provinces of Ontario (49  %) and of the Colombia-British (34  %), whereas French-speaking Quebec represents only 4  % of this total. The majority of these emigrants arrived recently, after the opening of Canada to an immigration of more important Asian origin in 1968

With the Japan, 610  000 Koreans (on some 2 million that Japan in 1945 counted, from which much then returned to Korea) have a statute from abroad. They are gathered in one or the other of associations of Korean residents in Japan, the Chongryon and the Mindan, close relations respectively of the North Korea and the South Korea. See the article Zainichi.

A diaspora of almost 300  000 members resides in the States resulting from the USSR, in particular in Central Asia where many Koreans, installed initially in the provinces of the Far East, were moved in 1937. Always in Russia, a minority of Korean origin in the island of Sakhaline (Japanese in the past) was off-set by the Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

In Latin America, several hundreds of Koreans were established in Mexico starting from the turning of the twentieth century when they constitute today a diaspora of a few thousands of people

Approximately 6  600 Koreans (of which about fifty North-Korean, not included/understood several thousands of French of Korean origin) resident in France, but the most important Korean minority in Europe resides in Germany. France is however the European country who counts the greatest number of adoptees (10.000) of Korean origin, at the origin of association Korean Racines.