Some of the land that South Korea has offered to the U.S. military has been left unused or poorly managed, according to government data.

The Seoul government has offered land for 68 U.S. military facilities and training fields ― a total of about 99 million square meters ― under the Status of Forces Agreement governing the legal status of 28,500 U.S. military personnel stationed here.

The entire plot is about 34 times larger than Yeouido Island in Seoul. The U.S. has been offered the right to use the land, but the Seoul government still retains ownership of it.

Some 730,000 square meters of the land around U.S. bases in Korea has been left unused, according to Yonhap, which cited data from the Ministry of National Defense. The swaths of land in question have been made useless as the purposes they were used for changed, or for no clear reasons.

The data also showed that 4.3 million square meters of the land, currently used for U.S. facilities and training grounds, has been listed as fields, paddies and even orchards. Pointing to the unused land and wrongly designated areas, some observers criticized the government for its lack of attention to state assets.

A Defense Ministry official noted the need to make the best use of the land.

“Should we use the land, listed as fields and paddies, to construct military buildings or runways, this would contravene land-related laws. Thus, there are many constraints to using the (wrongly designated) land,” said the official on condition of anonymity.

“By turning the wrongly listed land into building sites, we would be able to better use the land and increase the value of our defense assets.”

Government data also showed that the boundaries of 33 U.S. facilities in Korea have not been clearly demarcated, which has caused conflicts with local residents.

The boundaries have become blurred due to the lack of proper measuring devices and geographical information when the government first offered the land to the U.S. military during the 1950-53 Korean War. The ministry reportedly plans to make clear demarcations by 2017.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)