1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
South Korea
Compare this sourced profile of Busan, South Korea before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Busan—3,285,147, Asia/Seoul, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: metropolitan city of South Korea.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Busan is GeoNames ID 1838524. Its recorded administrative path is Busan → South Korea, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Busan occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-14; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Busan ranks 106 by recorded population. Inside the 22 selected South Korea entries it ranks 2; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 69. Its 3,285,147 population value is 3.72 times the 883,490 median for the country cohort and 3.26 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Busan falls inside the leading tenth of this atlas's South Korea population cohort. Busan's recorded value reaches at least twice the country-cohort median in this snapshot. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Busan's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Kimhae at 20.008 km with 531,966 recorded people; Changwon at 34.692 km with 1,025,702 recorded people; Ulsan at 54.97 km with 1,098,421 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 34.962 km. Compared with Kimhae, Busan's recorded population is 6.18 times as large. Against Busan, Kimhae follows Gimhae-si → Gyeongsangnam-do → South Korea in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected South Korea cohort, uses the shared Asia/Seoul identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Busan's. Against Busan, Changwon follows Changwon-si → Gyeongsangnam-do → South Korea in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected South Korea cohort, uses the shared Asia/Seoul identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Busan's. Against Busan, Ulsan follows Ulsan → South Korea in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected South Korea cohort, uses the shared Asia/Seoul identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Busan's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 262 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Busan's nearest-coordinate gap falls between the tightest tenth and quarter of the atlas. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1838524, the coordinate pair 35.1017 / 129.0300, country rank 2 of 22, and neighbor GeoNames 1842943 at 20.008 km bind Busan to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Busan's reference point is 35.1017° north and 129.0300° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Seoul is shared by 22 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Busan's row carries a first-order administrative label but no second-order label. Busan's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Busan's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Busan, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Busan's closest other entries in this atlas are Kimhae (20.008 km), Changwon (34.692 km), Ulsan (54.97 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Busan, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-14; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.