In recent years, the area has also attracted many Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants, with many international restaurants and stores opening up in the neighborhood as a result.

Its residents were then mostly Japanese; a small number of Korean and Chinese people lived there while working as laborers.

[2]In the early 1980s, after years of tense Japan-South Korean relations and thus limited immigration, Japan began allowing exchange students and more foreign workers due to a labor shortage.

A larger number arrived beginning in the late 1980s, when South Korea lifted its restrictions on foreign travel.

[6][7] The good access to transportation and lower cost of rent in the area made it popular with immigrants.

[6][8] The area came to be popularly called "Koreatown" around the time of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which South Korea and Japan jointly hosted.

[9][10] Prime Ministers Yoshiro Mori and other government officials bowed at a memorial for Lee on January 29, 2001.

[15] After a controversial 2012 visit by South Korean president Lee Myung-bak to the contested Liancourt Rocks,[16][17] there was a significant boycott of Korea-related businesses in Japan.

[20] In 2022, it was reported that the area had fully recovered from the 2012 onwards drop in sales, and had even seen an increase in the number of Korea-related businesses.

[24] In July 2013, the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan stated that Shin-Ōkubo had 500 businesses, including around 350 restaurants.