The real estate area owned by the top 1 percent of Korean corporations more than doubled during the five years under the Lee Myung-bak government, according to data released by the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy on Monday.

In 2012, the area measured 5,724.84 square kilometers, up from 2,658 square kilometers in 2007; reflecting a 115.3 percent increase, the report showed.

The current figure is slightly more than five times the entire area of Seoul City, which measures 605.2 square kilometers.

The appraised value of the real estate in hand also doubled to

about 847 trillion won ($763 billion) from the 399 trillion won of five years ago.

However, the amount of real estate area owned by the bottom 10 percent of Korean corporations fell about 3 percent to 23.99 square kilometers from 24.72 square kilometers during the same period.