During the past six years, the number of foreign spouses of Koreans continued to rise with Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese in the top three in the same order.
Statistics released by the Justice Ministry have showed that the number of foreign spouses of Koreans increased 54 percent from 93,786 in 2006 to 144,681 last year.
The growth rate was 17.7 percent in 2007, 11 percent in 2008, 2.1 percent in 2009, 13.2 percent in 2010 and 2.1 percent in 2011, showing a steady increase.
Chinese numbered 64,173, or 44.4 percent of the total 144,681 as of the end of last year. Most of the Chinese are ethnic Koreans.
Vietnamese come second with 25.9 percent or 37,516, followed by Japanese with 7.7 percent or 11,162 people and Filipinos with 5.8 percent or 8,367 people.
The other countries are Cambodia with 3.2 percent(4,583), Thailand with 1.8 percent (2,603), the U.S. with 1.7 percent (2,410), Mongolia with 1. 7 percent (2,393), Uzbekistan with 1.3 percent (1,840), and Russia with 0.9 percent (1,319).