Cities similar to Seoul

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

Osaka is the closest match, 11.7 percentile points from Seoul across 10 shared metrics. The two sit within eight percentile points of each other on places to eat, universities and women aged 20–39. The band widens slowly from there: the last city listed sits 19.4 away, so these 10 are a cluster rather than a ranking with a clear winner. None of the 10 are in South Korea. Distance says how alike two cities measure, never which one is better to live in: a city can be close to Seoul 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
OsakaJapan11.710places to eat, universities, women aged 20–39
TokyoJapan13.810places to eat, clean air, universities
KobeJapan14.810cost of living, city-centre rent, universities
Taipei CityTaiwan15.210places to eat, city-centre rent, universities
KyotoJapan16.310universities, places to eat, salary against local costs
BucharestRomania17.610women aged 20–39, universities, cost of living
YokohamaJapan18.910salary against local costs, clean air, places to eat
ZagrebCroatia18.910city-centre rent, safety, universities
FukuokaJapan19.110
StrasbourgFrance19.410local salary, green space

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 Seoul with Osaka

Data updated