Japanese Own Land Eight Times the Size of Yeouido in Korea

It was revealed that Japanese own land eight times the size of Yeouido in Korea.

The government will check actual landlords by the end of 2006 to incorporate the lands that it confirms as having been transferred to Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MFE) on August 14, lands that are registered in the name of Japanese in title and registration amount to 48,750 lots, 66.62 million square meters (about 21.19 million pyeong), 7.9 times as large as Yeouido, which covers 8.4 million square meters (2.55 million pyeong).

The Japanese government transferred the lands in the name of Japanese to its nationals who moved to Korea during the Japanese occupation, or Koreans who changed their names to Japanese names owned the lands. Some lands were purchased by Japanese after the real estate market was opened in 1998.

The MFE designates the lands Japanese owned before Korea’s liberation in 1945 as “ownerless real estate,” and is working on making the lands national possessions.

A total of 44 million square meters (about 13.33 million pyeong) in 36,365 land parcels in the name of Japanese have been reverted to national ownership from October 2004 to June 2005.

The MFE is planning to make a public announcement through the Korea Asset Management Corporation to seek the actual owners of lands registered in the names of Japanese who are possibly Koreans with Japanese names.

legman@donga.com