국토지리학회지 ISSN:1225-3766(Print) THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL OF KOREA

This paper studied and analyzed changes in the total population over a long period, natural increase or decrease in population due to birth and death, increase or decrease in net movement due to regional population movement, and changes in population distribution by generation. The population of these local small cities showed three types of changes. It showed a decrease in the population due to the net outflow of the population until the early 2000s, but from the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, the net outflow of the population changed to net inflow, and the population decline stopped. Since 2018, the net outflow of population in local small cities has begun again, and the number of naturally decreasing populations is also rapidly increasing, and the current population is in a double decline. Therefore, as a response to population decline, enhancing regional vitality is becoming increasingly important, and various measures to diagnose vitality and enhance vitality need to be sought. Under this perception, This study aims to calculate a new vitality index to confirm the degree of vitality by region, and to examine the implications for enhancing vitality by categorically classifying regions with high vitality index.