Walk the alleys of Seoul and you’ll meet cats. Under parked cars, on top of walls, between the flowerpots by a stairway. They watch people from a distance that neither flees nor approaches.
Travelers tend to ask two questions. Why are there so many? And why are their ear tips clipped?
The short answer
- Seoul has about 90,000 street cats — less than half the 200,000 of 2015.
- A clipped ear tip is a neutering mark. It's not an injury.
- Someone is already looking after them. A traveler's job is to walk past without feeding them.
What the numbers show
That last box is the point of the whole statistic. A falling kitten share means the population isn’t shrinking by chance — it’s being structurally managed. In fact, Seoul’s street cat count has held roughly steady since 2021.
TNR — trap, neuter, return
TNR stands for Trap · Neuter · Return. Instead of removing cats, you neuter them and put them back where they lived. It blocks breeding while preventing the "vacuum effect," where new cats move in to fill an empty spot. Korea runs the program on local government budgets, and Seoul's decade-plus of it produced the numbers above.
Why the ear tip is clipped
So if you see a cat with a clipped ear tip, it means TNR is working in that neighborhood. It’s a mark of management, not abuse.
From 'stray cat' to 'neighborhood cat'
The Korean word for these cats has changed over time. It used to be doduk-goyangi (“thief cat”). Now gil-goyangi (“street cat”) is standard, and local governments and organizations use dongne-goyangi (“neighborhood cat”).
The order the words changed in is the order the perception changed in — from a creature that steals, to a creature that’s on the street, to a creature that lives in the neighborhood with you.
The shift shows up in the statistics too. Among Korean households with cats, 24.9% got their cat from the street. That’s the exact mirror of dogs, 28.4% of which come from pet shops. Korea’s cat culture often began with rescue, not purchase.
Cat moms — the caretakers, and the conflict
Every neighborhood has someone who regularly feeds and waters the cats. They’re called cat moms. The term is used regardless of gender, and many cat moms also manage feeding stations and file TNR reports. This informal workforce deserves much of the credit for the managed population in the statistics above.
At the same time, “cat mom” is a word of conflict in Korea.
🐈 Two sides of the feeding-station debate
| In favor | Against |
|---|---|
| Feeding at a fixed spot keeps it hygienic | It creates food waste and smells |
| You need to know the population to run TNR | Cats gather, bringing noise and vehicle damage |
| It replaces haphazard feeding | Feeding stations actually grow the population |
Seoul’s city-managed feeding stations grew from 19 in 2023 to 26 in 2025, and managing resident conflicts has become a policy task in proportion. The city now says its focus has shifted from “reducing the numbers” to “working out how to coexist.” Population control has largely succeeded; what remains is agreement among people.
What should a traveler do?
When you meet a cat in an alley
- Don't feed it. Someone already cares for it and there's a designated feeding spot. Leftover food leads to hygiene problems and neighbor conflicts. Human food is also bad for cats.
- Don't touch it. Most of these cats aren't used to human hands. A bite or scratch turns your itinerary into a hospital visit.
- Photograph quietly. Turn off the flash and don't chase. If it runs off, that's the end of it.
- A clipped ear tip means the cat is being managed. Don't mistake it for a rescue situation.
- If it looks hurt or sick — don't try to catch it yourself. Contact the district office or an animal-protection hotline. Just reporting the location is enough.
If you want to go somewhere specifically to see cats, old residential alleys are the answer. In Seoul, you’re most likely to run into them naturally in the backstreets of Yeonnam-dong, Seochon, and Ihwa-dong. Just remember these are people’s living spaces. Walking quietly is the best way to visit — for the cats and the residents alike.
Sources
- Seoul Metropolitan Government street cat habitat monitoring (2025) — about 90,000 (90,319–91,688), down from about 200,000 in 2015, stable since 2021
- Seoul TNR program results — 61% neutering rate, about 14,000 surgeries a year, 9.9% kitten share
- Seoul street cat feeding station status — 19 in 2023 → 26 in 2025
- Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, "Public Awareness Survey on Animal Welfare" — 24.9% of cats adopted from the street, 28.4% of dogs from pet shops