Authentic restaurants,a global culture and one of a kind experience, Ansan becomes the destination of choice for foreigners working in South Korea.

Bordering Seoul from its southwest side, Ansan is Korea’s first planned city, modelled after Canberra, Australia. It is also its most entrepreneurial, home to more than 10,000 small and medium-sized companies. It boasts of the highest urban green area ratio in South Korea, the most notable examples being Sihwa Lake, Daebudo Island and Ansan Marshy Park.

Yet, when you first step into Ansan, you do not feel like you are in metropolitan Korea which is mostly defined by its posh homogeneity. Small alleyways with multilingual signs shout at you as you walk through its streets, genial Indian music welcomes you into its folds and ethnically diverse crowds are seen setting up shops by the street, a nod to its widely diverse roots. 

There are approximately 95,000 foreigners in Ansan, accounting for at least 13 per cent of its total population. This makes it a significant figure considering South Korea’s erstwhile strict immigration policies. South Korea’s declining birth rate despite investing more than 200 million dollars in programs such as free childcare, child allowances and maternity benefits since 2005 has forced the country to relax its views on immigration. In December 2023, the erstwhile Justice Minister Han Diong-Hoon said that the time for worrying about whether or not to proceed with a new immigration policy had passed. “If we do not proceed, we will inevitably face a crisis of national extinction due to population decline.” 

A map of the cultural zone in Ansan

As the country gears towards welcoming more foreigners into its folds, Ansan serves as a good example of global cultural integration. Its Mayor, Mingeun Lee says that, since 2005, Ansan has operated one of the first administrative agencies for foreigners in the country and also has a local centre dedicated for the same. Some of the services the city provides includes weekend language classes to foreigners, free counselling and support system to its foreign residents. 

It is also the first city in Korea to issue a decree promoting human rights for foreign residents and the only city in the country to provide childcare fees to foreign children. 

A chinese vendor displaying her ware for the day

Walking around in Ansan, we came across several Indians who have declared themselves as “refugees”. Most of them from Gujarat, and unwilling to share their names, but eager to share their stories of uncertainty of life in India. Rising inflation and unemployment being one of their reasons for leaving. Pictured here, one such person, who has left his family back in his home country. He works in a factory in Ansan and applied for asylum in 2022, he says the process is fairly easy but his wife’s residency was rejected on the basis of financial issues, but going back home is not an option for him. After two years, “I will move to Canada and call her there,” he says confidently. 

In 2022, the number of first asylum applicants increased by 400 per cent in South Korea. Indians were amongst the top 3 applicants. According to the latest data avaiable, Indians comprise the world’s largest overseas diaspora. Every year, 2.5 million Indians migrate overseas, which is the highest annual number of migrants in the world.