The number of Chinese residents in South Korea crossed the 1 million mark for the first time last month owing largely to the increase of the entry of Korean-Chinese migrants hoping to seek jobs here, the country's immigration office report said Monday.

According to the monthly report, 1,000,138 Chinese people, including 630,998 Korean-Chinese, reside in the country as of the end of last month.

The all-time high figure represents 50.7 percent of the total of 1,972,580 foreigners in the country, and was reached just one year and three months after the comparable figure surpassed the 900,000 line in January last year, the report said.

Of the total Chinese population, the number of Korean-Chinese entrants posted 626,655 in December, up from 595,810 in January last year and 602,548 in March that year, according to the report.

The second-largest foreign population group was Americans with 147,906 or 7.5 percent, followed by Vietnamese with 141,652 (7.2 percent), Thais with 91,829 (4.7 percent) and Filipinos with 54,739 (2.8 percent), the report said. (Yonhap)