Total Amount of Official Land Prices Reaches 1355 Trillion Won

An estimated total amount of individual official prices of taxable land in the nation was 1,355 trillion won.

At the end of last year, the total amount of official prices of 90.8 square meters, excluding non-taxable land, reached 1354.53 trillion won, according to a report by the Ministry of Construction and Transportation Wednesday.

The figure gained 25.5 percent from 1079.18 trillion in 1991 and 3.6 percent from 1307.35 trillion won in 2001.

As a result, the average land price rose to 14,923 won per square meter last year from 14,428 won in 2001.

By city and province, the highest average official land price was found in Seoul (825,201 won per square meter) whereas the lowest average official land price was found in Gangwon Province (2,371 won per square meter).

While the official land prices in Seoul jumped 3.7 percent from a year ago, that of Gangwon Privince jumped only 2.3 percent.

The size of the Seoul metropolitan area, Incheon, and Gyeonggi Province accounts for only 11.8 percent of the country but the total amount of official land prices accounts for 55.3 percent or 749.74 trillion won, indicating the serious concentration of national wealth in the metropolitan area.

Jae-Seong Hwang jsonhng@donga.com