Every year since 1976, the national Arts Council Korea publishes a yearbook on the country’s arts and culture ecosystem, tracing trends and providing valuable information for policymakers.

This year’s Arts and Culture Yearbook, released Monday, goes a step further to paint a clearer picture of the cultural life in Korea, introducing for the first time the self-devised Arts Index.

But the index, the first of such kind developed with the aim of gauging the disparity in arts and culture between Seoul and the rest of Korea, is far from sophisticated. The presence of arts and culture is measured by only one factor -- the number of events or performances that take place.

Each province and major city in Korea -- from the second-largest city of Busan to the southern island province of Jeju -- are given a score against Seoul’s benchmark of 600, based on the 2014 data. The index covers six fields of arts and culture -- literature, visual arts, Western music, traditional Korean music, theater and dance -- and in each field, Seoul is the benchmark with a score of 100. 

Here are some of the findings:

Seoul is at the top, with the runner-up being Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, at 149.1, and the second runner-up Busan at 106.4.

None of the other provinces or cities in Korea has a score past 100. Daegu’s score is 64.7 followed by Gwangju at 47.1, Incheon at 36.9, Daejeon at 26.4 and Jeju Province at 16.

Ranked at the bottom are North Chungcheong Province at 15.3 and the newly-established administrative city of Sejong at a mere 1.5.

The venue where the most events were held in 2014 was Seoul Arts Center with 1,355 events, followed by Sejong Center for the Performing Arts at 462 and Kumho Art Hall at 443. All three are in Seoul.

I believe a cultural gap of this scale deserves national attention, for what it portends for Korean society as a whole. For residents in Sejong, North Chungcheong Province or Jeju, it may not be just the issue of relative deprivation. It could be the question of accessibility to arts and culture, which have been essential elements of any human society from prehistoric times.

Of course, the health and vitality of a region’s cultural scene can never be simply reduced to a set of figures.

In the case of Arts Index, it’s not even a “set” of them, although I think a more comprehensive measure using indicators like attendance, ticket prices, the number of arts institutions, their budgets, art education, consumer spending on arts, and so on would only reveal the many blessings that Seoulites are enjoying and others are not.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports unveiled a set of policy measures, outlining the path of the Park Geun-hye government’s cultural policies for the second half of her term.

Unveiling plans to establish two new major cultural facilities in Seoul, the ministry said its vision was to enhance its cultural soft-power internationally, raise its artistic and cultural profile on the global stage and further spread its pop culture to other countries in a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, or hallyu.  

The findings in the very first Arts Index survey offer a blunt reality check on Korea’s fundamentals in arts and culture at this particular time. 

Before trying to exert cultural influence overseas for the maximum possible economic benefit, Korea needs to look within its borders first in order to make sure no one is being left behind.

By Lee Sun-young

Lee Sun-young is the culture desk editor of The Korea Herald. She can be reached at milaya@heraldcorp.com. Ed.