A truck-based mobile supermarket operates in a rural town in South Chungcheong in an undated photo.CU
Seoulites’ everyday life can feel frictionless. Step outside or tap a phone, and nearly everything you need is within reach.
Elsewhere, it can be a very different story.
Outside the Seoul metropolitan area, "shopping deserts" make it difficult for rural residents to access even basic necessities at nearby corner shops that can't sustain business with a sparse population.
“Even if I just need a block of tofu or a bottle of water, I have to ask my son to drive me,” Kim Jeom-i, a 78-year-old resident living in a rural community in Goseong County, Gangwon, told the JoongAng Ilbo on Aug. 6. Kim has lived in the village for 40 years.
“The neighborhood corner shop closed 10 years ago, and there are no supermarkets within walking distance.”
By car, the nearest supermarket is only 15 minutes from Kim’s home. But for Kim, who cannot drive, getting there takes 50 minutes. She first walks 20 minutes to the bus stop, then takes a bus that runs once an hour. After a 20-minute ride, she gets off and walks another 10 minutes to the supermarket.
On the same day, eight residents in their 70s and 80s were taking refuge from the heat at the village community center.
“In this kind of heat, we’d love nothing more than some ice cream,” they said. “But going out to buy it is out of the question.”
In a shopper’s paradise like Korea, where retailers compete to offer overnight delivery, free returns and membership discounts, small neighborhood supermarkets — once a lifeline for residents looking to pick up everyday essentials close to home — are rapidly disappearing.
The trend reflects the growing concentration of the population in the greater Seoul area and adjacent cities, as well as the decline of provincial communities as their populations shrink and age. As local customer bases shrink, brick-and-mortar stores are finding it increasingly difficult to stay in business.
The country had 11,780 supermarkets nationwide in 2024, down 1,178 from three years earlier, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics on Aug. 18. The cities of Ulsan, Gwangju and Daejeon experienced declines of more than 12.5 percent over the same period, with 303, 401 and 356 supermarkets closed, respectively.
Nearly three-quarters of the country’s 37,563 administrative villages in provincial areas had no grocery stores at all, according to the Data Ministry’s 2020 census of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
Workers classify delivery products for orders at a supermarket in central Seoul on Feb. 9.YONHAP
The figure is believed to have risen since then, as low birthrates and the continued exodus of young people to the greater Seoul area have accelerated the decline of provincial communities.
“Living in the countryside is hardest when I run out of everyday essentials like milk or eggs, or when I’m craving a meal that I can’t get delivered,” Shin Woong-jun, aged 67, who left Seoul for a farming life in Hoengseong, Gangwon, a decade ago, said. “Now I buy groceries in bulk and pile them up in one of my rooms, which I’ve turned into a makeshift storeroom.”
Seoul is no exception.
Of the capital’s 426 administrative neighborhoods, 25 were found to have poor physical and digital access to food and related services, according to a study by Korea University’s researcher Kim Se-heon and geology Prof. Kim Young-ho. Such areas were concentrated primarily in residential neighborhoods on the outskirts of Seoul.
A JoongAng Ilbo analysis of 57,306 convenience stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets operated by conglomerate retail firms and shopping malls nationwide as of the end of 2025 found wide disparities in retail access across the country.
Of all retail facilities, 24,551, or 43 percent, were concentrated in Seoul and Gyeonggi.
By contrast, the number of retail facilities was below the national average in regions with a high proportion of older residents, including South Jeolla, where people aged 65 and older make up 26 percent of the population and North Gyeongsang and Gangwon, where they account for 24 percent each.
A logistics center for Kurly, the operator of e-commerce platform Market KurlyKURLY
Online shopping is not much of an alternative for many residents in these areas, who are often less comfortable using smartphones and computers. Some rely on their children to order household staples such as instant noodles and toilet paper, but fresh food remains harder to get.
“Fresh food needs to be kept at low temperatures, which limits delivery to areas within reach of logistics centers,” said a retail industry source who requested anonymity.
Experts expect disparities in access to everyday goods and services to widen further.
“The government needs to address the problem through public-private cooperation backed by administrative support,” said Lee June-young, a professor of consumer science at Sangmyung University.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
