South Korea's statistical authority, KNSO, uses four major administrative divisions: metropolitan cities (gwangyeoksi), provinces (do), a special city (teukbyeolsi), and a special self-governing (autonomous) province (teukbyeol jachido).  Seoul is sometimes reported in two parts.  Smaller divisions are counties (gun) and cities (shi), but because of a dearth of reporting at these levels we have not devised geo codes for them.

References:

• KNSO: Classification system (attached)
  • Korean
  • English (machine translation)
• Michael D. Gunther / www.art-and-archaeology.com: South Korea geo structure map (attached)
• Moody's Analytics: Metropolitan areas for South Korea
• Moody's Analytics: Historical data for South Korea (TBA)
• Moody's Analytics: Estimated data for South Korea (TBA)

Table 1. Geographic types for South Korea and Data Buffet geo codes. For example, all six metropolitan cities are identified with IKOR_(letter)(letter). The geo wild card IKOR_^^ cannot differentiate between the levels of province and metropolitan city; we suggest a geo list instead.

Table 2. Redefinitions of provinces. On occasion, component areas will be transferred from one province to another.

Table 3. South Korea geographic hierarchy and geo codes. The geography codes assigned by Moody's Analytics appear in red in the first column.

• KNSO_Geo_Structure.xls
• South_Korea_geo_structure.jpg