Koreans in Spain

[4] South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, whose statistics are based largely on registrations with consulates and count locally born persons of Korean descent as well as South Korean-born individuals, recorded a somewhat higher count of 3,769 individuals in 2005; of those, 2,538 resided in, with another 1,231 in Las Palmas.

[6] They trace their origins to South Korean migrant workers who worked on deep-ocean fishing boats based on the island starting in the 1960s.

[8] However, with the decline of South Korea's ocean fisheries industries in the 1990s, their population shrank, from 2,283 individuals in 1997 to just 1,292 by 1999, a number which decreased at a slower rate over the following decade to reach 1,197 by 2011.

[1][8] Most of the remaining Korean population have shifted away from the fishing industry, and their children have largely entered professional fields, achieving relative affluence.

[9] Korean martial artists, though a smaller group, are also well represented; they either run their own dojang, or work for private security companies.