The area includes Gyeonggi Province and the cities of Incheon and Suwon, home for more than 20 million people in a country with a population of 50 million.

As a result, a net 163,000 people moved out of the capital area, marking the first net decrease since 1971 when the agency started to compile such data.

For Seoul alone, a net 571,000 residents left the capital city in 2015, while Gyeonggi Province received a net 343,000 people.

The statistics agency said costly housing in the Seoul drove the diaspora, as some 1.5 million people and students commute to Seoul from other cities and provincial areas. (Yonhap)