Country comparison: China / South Korea

This country comparison is a concise, tabular overview of numerous data from our respective country pages for China and South Korea. There, we provide many explanations and details per country that go far beyond this comparison.

General information

	China	South Korea
Region:	East Asia	East Asia
Area:	9,562,910 km²	100,339 km²
National language:	Chinese	Korean
Government form:	People's republic (communist one-party system)	Presidential republic
Independent since:	1523 BC	1948 AD
Capital:	Beijing	Seoul

Population

Details for China and South Korea

	China	South Korea
Population:	1,412,360,000	51,745,000
Inhabitants/km²:	147.7	515.7
Life expectancy males:	Ø 75 years	Ø 81 years
Life expectancy females:	Ø 81 years	Ø 87 years
Average age:	Ø 38.4 years	Ø 43.2 years
Birth rate:	8.52 ‰	5.30 ‰
Death rate:	7.07 ‰	5.90 ‰
Migrationrate:	-0.11 ‰	2.63 ‰

Quality of life

Values from 0 (bad) to 100 (very good)
See also: Explanations and country ranking on quality of life

	China	South Korea
Political stability:	69	84
Civil rights:	37	77
Health:	69	92
Climate:	54	56
Cost of Living:	38	42
Popularity:	73	41

Economy

Details for China and South Korea

	China	South Korea
Currency:	Renminbi yuan (1 CNY = 100 Fen)	South Korean won (1 KRW =100 Chon)
Unemployment rate:	4.8 %	3.5 %
Inflation rate:	0.98 %	2.50 %
Cost of Living: (USA = 100%)	63.16 %	86.98 %
Commercial taxes and contributions:	59.20 %	33.20 %
Average income:	11,880 US$	35,110 US$
Corruption index:	55 (bad)	37 (moderate)

	CHN: total	per 1000 inh.	KOR: total	per 1000 inh.
Gross domestic product:	17,734,063 M US$	12.56 M US$	1,810,956 M US$	35.00 M US$
Gross national product:	16,785,119 M US$	11.88 M US$	1,816,733 M US$	35.11 M US$
Exported goods:	3,554,296 M US$	2.52 M US$	771,202 M US$	14.90 M US$
Imported goods:	3,091,488 M US$	2.19 M US$	698,103 M US$	13.49 M US$

Infrastructure

Details for China and South Korea

	CHN: total	per 1000 inh.	KOR: total	per 1000 inh.
Roadways:	5,200,000 km	3.68 km	100,428 km	1.94 km
Railways:	68,141 km	0.05 km	4,111 km	0.08 km
Waterways:	110,000 km	0.08 km	1,600 km	0.03 km
Harbours:	6,662	0.0047	1,904	0.0368
Passenger airports:	214	0.0002	15	0.0003

Energy balance

Details for China and South Korea

	CHN: total	per 1000 inh.	KOR: total	per 1000 inh.
Energy consumption:	5.564 tn kWh	3.94 m kWh	507.60 bn kWh	9.81 m kWh
Energy production:	5.883 tn kWh	4.17 m kWh	526.00 bn kWh	10.17 m kWh
Energy export:	18.91 bn kWh	13,388.94 kWh	0.00 kWh	0.00 kWh
Energy imports:	6.19 bn kWh	4,379.20 kWh	0.00 kWh	0.00 kWh
CO2 emissions:	10.71 bn t	7,581.08 t	610.79 m t	11,803.87 t

Telecommunication

Details for China and South Korea

	China	South Korea
International dialing:	+86	+82
Internet domain:	.cn	.kr

	CHN total	CHN per 1000 inh.	KOR total	KOR per 1000 inh.
Landlines:	180,700,500	128	23,213,189	449
Mobile cellulars:	1,732,661,400	1227	72,855,492	1408
Internet server:	20,602,000	15	315,697	6
Internet users:	1,031,774,760	731	50,488,162	976
Broadband Internet:	535,786,000	379	22,944,268	443

Healthcare system

Details for China and South Korea

	China	South Korea
Hospital beds per 1000 inh.:	4.31	12.43
Physicians per 1000 inh.:	1.79	2.37
Diabetes:	9.2 %	6.9 %
Tuberculosis:	0.55 ‰	0.44 ‰
Tuberculosis cure rate:	95.0 %	81.0 %
Smokers:	25.6 %	20.8 %

Climate

We also provide a more detailed climate comparison of both countries.
The data for each country can be found here: China and South Korea

	China	South Korea
Daytime temperatures:	19.2 °C	18.3 °C
Nighttime temperatures:	9.4 °C	10.0 °C
Water temperature:	17.9 °C	12.8 °C
Rel. humidity:	69 %	69 %
Rain days:	6.4	6.8
Sunshine hours per day:	5.9	6.2

Native languages

	China	South Korea
Korean:	n/a	99.9 %
Chinese:	92.0 %	0.1 %
Hakka:	1.8 %	n/a
Zhuang:	1.4 %	n/a
Mantšu:	0.9 %	n/a
Hui:	0.8 %	n/a
Uighur:	0.6 %	n/a
Yi:	0.6 %	n/a
Tujia:	0.5 %	n/a
Mongolian:	0.4 %	n/a
Tibetan:	0.4 %	n/a
Dong:	0.2 %	n/a
Puyi:	0.2 %	n/a
other:	0.2 %	0.0 %

Religions

	China	South Korea
Nondenominational:	58.5 %	43.3 %
Christianity:	2.3 %	31.6 %
Buddhism:	6.2 %	24.2 %
Local chinese beliefs:	17.5 %	n/a
Taoism:	4.4 %	n/a
Islam:	1.7 %	n/a
Hinduism:	0.1 %	n/a
other:	9.3 %	0.9 %

Data inventory and updates

A country comparison like this can be based on several hundred individual data items from dozens of different sources. All data are based on the most recent data available to us. Most of them refer to the previous year and are updated around March of the following year. If a country has not yet published data for the most recent or penultimate year, we present the most recent official data. Updates are made on an ongoing basis depending on the subject area or source, so there is no single "cutoff date" for this comparison. Sources for almost all data can be found on our respective country pages.

China	South Korea
All information: China	All information: South Korea
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