Seized Korean Land Owned By Japanese Far Exceeds Dokdo

Statistics show that among the lands transferred to the ownership of Japanese nationals during the forced Japanese occupation, an area 348 times that of Dokdo still remains in Japanese hands.

According to a report from the Ministry of Finance and Economy made on March 21, some 62.70 million square meters (19 million pyeong) of land that was taken by the Japanese during the forced occupation of Korea by Japan are still listed under names of Japanese nationals because of incomplete registrations.

This area is 348 times the area of Dokdo (180,902 square meters) and about 7.5 times the area of Yeouido (8.4 million square meters).

The government searched for most of properties owned by Japanese corporations or individuals to claim national ownership from 1985 to 2003.

However, a second inspection conducted last year revealed that 77.17 million square meters of land was still were nominally owned by Japanese corporations or individuals, and another round of property registration was begun last year to complete the process for 14.47 million square meters of Japanese corporate property.

This year, an additional confirmation process will be done on 62.70 million square meters of land under the names of Japanese individuals. Land will return to state ownership if it is found to be owned by Japanese nationals.

Chi-Young Shin higgledy@donga.com