The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Jan. 20 said a 2025 study on global perceptions of Korea found that a record-high 82.3% of those surveyed had a good impression of the country. (Korean Cultural Center in United Arab Emirates)

By Park Hye Ri

The success of Hallyu (Korean Wave) content worldwide has raised the global perception of Korea to a record high.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Jan. 20 announced the results of a 2025 survey on the country's image abroad conducted in October last year on 13,000 respondents in 26 countries.

The findings showed that 82.3% of those polled had a positive image of Korea, up 3.3 percentage points year on year and the highest level since the survey was launched in 2018.

By country, the United Arab Emirates (94.8%) had the highest favorability rating of Korea followed by Egypt (94%), the Philippines (91.4%), Turkiye (90.2%), India (89%) and South Africa (88.8%).

The figure in Thailand rose 9.4 points to 86.2%, while that in the U.K. jumped 9.2 to 87.4%. The U.K. posted a rating higher than the global average for the first time in the survey's history and was the lone country in Europe to do so.

The rating in China rose 3.6 points to 62.8% and that in Japan grew 5.4 to 42.2%, with both figures reflecting signs of improving relations though relatively low compared to those in other countries. Japan's, however, posted an all-time high.

The main factor that raised Korea's image was cultural content such as K-pop, K-dramas and movies (45.2%). By region, the Asia-Pacific region saw the highest influence from Hallyu including the Philippines (69.3%), Japan (64.4%), Indonesia (59.5%) and Vietnam (58.4%).

The primary means of accessing Korea were video platforms (64.4%), social media (56.6%), internet sites (46.7%) and broadcasting (32.8%). YouTube (77.4%) and Netflix (65.1%) were tops among video platforms while Instagram (63.7%) and TikTok (56.2%) led in social media.

"This survey showed the global popularity of Korea as well as the impact of Korean culture and content," Deputy Minister for Public Communications Kong Hyung-sik said. "Through discussions with experts, we will conduct more in-depth analyses of the survey and actively utilize the results in various sectors."

hrhr@korea.kr