The government will conduct a survey of overseas Koreans who have family in North Korea.

The unification ministry said on Friday that the survey will be conducted first in the United States and Canada through November.

The questionnaire for the region is a supplement to the survey to determine the status of separated families that was first conducted domestically in 2011 and carried out every five years since.

Overseas Koreans were first included in the third survey in 2021, but the lack of local publicity and the limitations of the telephone survey method raised accuracy issues regarding the collected data, such as omissions or errors.

The ministry said that this year's survey is aimed at collecting more accurate and updated information on separated families abroad through active publicity in the region and in-depth interviews.

As of last month, 792 people in the U.S. and 29 in Canada have applied for reunions with their long-lost relatives in the North.