Nearly 190,000 foreigners visit Gangnam for medical service, half for skin care

Plastic surgery clinics line the street near Apgujeong Station in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)

A record-high number of foreigners received medical services at hospitals and clinics in Gangnam last year, the district office said Thursday.

The Gangnam-gu Office said 185,559 foreign nationals visited the district for medical services in 2023, which accounted for 30.6 percent of all 605,768 foreign patients in South Korea. The number of foreign patients in Gangnam tripled from the year before, marking an all-time high.

Gangnam-gu is one of the three districts in the affluent Gangnam region -- along with Seocho-gu and Songpa-gu -- and is known as a region with among the highest housing costs and highest incomes in Seoul. Gangnam-gu in particular is known for its unofficial medical district between Apgujeong-dong and Sinsa-dong that is filled with private medical facilities specializing in cosmetic surgery and dermatology.

As such, nearly half -- 48.2 percent -- of medical services for foreign patients in Gangnam-gu last year were in dermatology, followed by 22.7 percent in the field of cosmetic surgery and 10.5 percent for internal medicine.

Those from Japan led all nationalities in terms of receiving medical services in Gangnam last year, accounting for 38.5 percent. They were followed by Chinese at 16.9 percent and Americans at 12 percent.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)