The government said Friday South Korea's population grew 0.6 percent last year to top 4.8 million. As of January 1st, the population stood at 48,021,558, the Government Administration and Home Affairs said, citing a census result. Korea's population exceeded 40 million for the first time in 1984. It took 11 years to add 5 million to 4.54 million in 1995. Since then, the population grew below 1 percent each year, adding just 3 million over the past seven years. Population of Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province accounted for 46.6 percent of the total, reflecting a serious concentration of population in the metropolitan area.