By Kang Seung-woo

The number of foreign residents in Korea has grown rapidly over the past five years, with their nationalities diversifying, a nationwide census showed Monday.

According to the census carried out every five years by Statistics Korea, the number of foreigners who have stayed here for more than three months reached around 590,000 as of November 1, 2010, up 148 percent from the 2005 number of 238,000.

The survey also said that a total of 90 countries each have more than 30 nationals living in Korea.

China lived up to its billing in the census as the most populated country in the world, as its people, including those of Korean descent, took up the largest portion of the foreign residents with some 299,000, accounting for 50.8 percent.

Female Vietnamese, who arrive here for marriage and males who come to find jobs, came in second with around 59,000 people — 10.1 percent — followed by the United States and the Philippines, which represented 7.1 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.

The top 10 countries in the number of foreign residents included Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Taiwan, whose numbers of citizens stood between 11,000 and 17,000.

Countries that had over 1,000 nationals were Myanmar, France, New Zealand, Germany and South Africa. Other European countries with about 100 to 300 nationals staying in Korea are the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Finland and Greece.

There are 33 countries including Cameroon, Laos, Israel, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that were represented by between 30 and 100 people here.

The latest report, meanwhile, said there were 3,116 foreigners who were from countries that had fewer than 30 nationals living in the country.

Of the total, 63.9 percent reside in the metropolitan area that is comprised of Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon.

By region, nearly a third of the nation’s foreigners live in Gyeonggi Province with 183,000 people or 31.1 percent, followed by Seoul and South Gyeongsang Province, where 163,000 and 41,000 reside, respectively.

The census said that the highest number of female foreign nationals were from Japan with 69.2 percent or about 17,000, followed by China with 53.6 percent and Vietnam with 47.9 percent.