The purpose of this study is to develop regional indices useful for diagnosing and evaluating conditions and characteristics of 163 Basic Settlement Areas nationwide. These indices are supposed to be utilized as basis for reasonable decision-making in the process of aim-setting of regional development policy, monitoring of policy implementation and evaluation of policy accomplishments.
The indices are largely composed of two categories; one is comprehensive index named as ‘Regional Development Index(RDI)’, the other sectoral index such as ‘Living Service Index’, ‘Regional Economy Index’, ‘Space for Relaxation Index’ and ‘Residents' Vitality Index’. The comprehensive index, namely RDI is drawn from the synthesis of the 4 sectoral indices.
Besides the 5 indices mentioned above, we also developed special indices such as ‘Creative Region Index’, ‘Living Convenience Index’ and ‘Green Growth Base Index’ in order to reflect the diagnosis of particular sectors which are expected to gain more importance in the future.
To develop regional indices, we constructed databases using official data including 20 variables concerning the sectors of ‘living place’, ‘working place’, ‘relaxing place’ and ‘community place’, which represent primary characteristics of Basic Settlement Areas.
As a result of the analysis of distribution of regions according to their RDI ranks, 5 rural municipalities, 28 urban-rural mixed municipalities, 16 urban municipalities fall under the top 30% municipalities. There is tendency to give higher RDI values for the municipalities located adjacent to big cities and municipalities functioning as regional cities or situated near regional cities.


Researchers: Mi-Ryung Song, Kwang-Sun Kim, In-Hye Kwon and Byeong-Seok Yoon
Research Period: 2010.11~2011.1
E-mail Address: mrsong@krei.re.kr