Cities similar to Busan

Ranked by how close each city sits to Busan across ten measured metrics: sex ratio, cost, rent, salary, safety, air, green space, places to eat and universities. Closer is more alike, not better.

Incheon is the closest match, 8.2 percentile points from Busan across 10 shared metrics. The two sit within eight percentile points of each other on salary against local costs, safety and green space. The band widens slowly from there: the last city listed sits 16.2 away, so these 10 are a cluster rather than a ranking with a clear winner. 3 of the 10 are also in South Korea; the other 7 are abroad. Distance says how alike two cities measure, never which one is better to live in: a city can be close to Busan because both score badly on the same things.

921 cities ranked by male-to-female ratio, 848 of them measured below national level, 104 country deep-dives.

Closest on
IncheonSouth Korea8.210salary against local costs, safety, green space
SuwonSouth Korea10.610salary against local costs, safety, green space
DaeguSouth Korea11.410cost of living, local salary, salary against local costs
ShenzhenChina13.810city-centre rent, salary against local costs, green space
GuangzhouChina14.610universities, green space, places to eat
Hsinchu CityTaiwan15.310local salary, salary against local costs, places to eat
ShanghaiChina15.310cost of living, universities
BeijingChina15.610cost of living, green space
Taoyuan CityTaiwan15.610women aged 20–39, city-centre rent, clean air
YokohamaJapan16.210cost of living, salary against local costs, local salary

Distance is the root-mean-square gap in percentile points across the metrics both cities carry, so 0 would be an exact match and 100 the opposite end of every scale. A pair scored on fewer than 8 shared metrics is not listed.

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Compare Busan with Incheon

Data updated