English: Map of confirmed cases of coronavirus in administrative divisions of South Korea over time, starting on January 20 when the first national case was observed.

The white-red bar associates shades of red to number of confirmed cases of coronavirus. Note that the increase of cases along the bar is exponential.

The squares in the bottom of the image represent days. Rows of squares represents days in months, starting with January 2020. Dark squares represent days from which data is used in the creation of the thematic map, with the (one) darkest gray square being the most recent day from which data is used.

The number of cases of coronavirus is measured cumulatively (i.e. observed cases are not removed upon cure or demise), and the Ministry of Health and Welfare of South Korea (MOHW) and Yonhap News are the two data sources used for the construction of this map. If an individual infected by the coronavirus is transferred from an administrative region to another, the confirmed coronavirus case is reassigned to the latter region (i.e. subtracted from the former region and added to the latter region). Transfers of this kind are not believed to be common (known cases of this type constitute less than 0.1% of the total number of coronavirus cases in South Korea). With the information published by MOHW, it is not possible to reverse these transfers to consistently accredited a confirmed case of coronavirus to the initial region where the infection was first confirmed (this includes several attempts over several days to contact MOHW by their presented contact details, which all failed). Time for reporting of coronavirus cases per day has not been consistent, but no reporting is timestamped earlier than 16:00 (local time) of the day data corresponds to. Starting on March 2, MOHW releases reports of confirmed cases of coronavirus by administrative region as of 00:00 (local time).

Note 1: Attempts has been made to treat reporting by the Ministry of Health and Welfare consistently. Upon MOHW reporting an error in previous reporting, that error is corrected in the dataset for this map (if a case was incorrectly added, then the most recently added coronavirus case is assumed to be the incorrectly added case, unless otherwise stated) (e.g. Busan (부산) in reporting from 00:00 on March 5, 2020). Upon MOHW reporting about an individual being moved to a new district, and hence reassigning the coronavirus case to the latter region, the same change is reflected in the dataset of this map (although this implies that the number of coronavirus cases in a given region can decrease, it is not possible to correct for all patient transfers with the data presented by MOHW) (e.g. Gwangju (광주) to Daegu (대구) in reporting from 00:00 on March 6, 2020). Upon MOHW decreasing the number of coronavirus cases in a region without information about why that was done, that change is assumed to have occurred due to a transfer of an infected individual, and the decrease in confirmed cases for that region is reflected in the dataset used in the creation of this map (e.g. Jeollanam-do (전남) in reporting from 00:00 on March 7, 2020). Upon MOHW reassigning a confirmed case of coronavirus from one region to another, due to the transfer of a deceased individual who was confirmed to be infected by the coronavirus, the reassignment is not reflected in the dataset used for the creation of this map (i.e. contrary to the official reporting by MOHW, confirmed cases of coronavirus are not reassigned map upon transfer of a deceased individual who was confirmed to be infected by the coronavirus) (e.g. Busan (부산) to Gyeongsangbuk-do (경북) in reporting from March 9 00:00, 2020).

Note 2: Two South Korean decendent residing in Wuhan (우한교민) (nrs. 13 and 24) were initially reported as confirmed cases of coronavirus in Chungcheongnam-do (충남), but in later reporting by Yonhap News removed from the dataset. These two individuals are not included in the dataset used to create this map.

Note 3: Official reporting of coronavirus cases by administrative regions is avoided in the creation of this map, since at least one region (Busan, 부산) defines a regional case differently than the Ministry of Health and Welfare (and Yonhap News), which has led to the officially reported number of cases of coronavirus by the region being considerably lower than the number reported by the MOHW for the same region.