Incomplete Democracy: Mapping Protest as an Indicators of Political Sentiment
In modern democratic societies, the political opinions of citizens are primarily expressed through public opinion polls and media. However, in recent times in Korea, the trust in these traditional indicators has sharply declined. During President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment crisis, the Myeongtaegyun Gate revealed that politically manipulated public opinion polls were being disseminated through the media, and the fact that extreme and false information created on social media platforms—including YouTube—is influencing politics has greatly shocked Korean citizens. Against this backdrop, citizens took to the streets to express their political views directly and physically. This project aims to analyze the protest data from these citizens and visualize it on urban spaces, thereby proposing a new map of democracy that can complement the existing distorted public opinion polls and media.
On December 3, 2024, President Yoon declared martial law, plunging the country into a sudden state of political tension. Although the National Assembly quickly responded by passing a resolution to lift the martial law just six hours later, the impact on civil society was profound. Many citizens viewed the brief imposition of martial law as a serious threat to democracy and began taking to the streets. Rather than suppressing dissent, the declaration ignited widespread anger and unity, triggering a wave of spontaneous protests across the nation. This marked the beginning of a sustained public movement demanding impeachment, which culminated on April 4, 2025, when the Constitutional Court officially removed the president from office. In the end, what was meant to be a moment of control became the spark for a powerful civic uprising and the restoration of democratic values.
This project aims to collect data on the scale and frequency of protests and to visualize it within the urban landscape as a new indicator for expressing political opinions. Since protests are physical and direct acts of participation—making data manipulation difficult—they can serve as a more reliable political indicator compared to the distorted opinion polls and media saturated with false information. Ultimately, this project seeks to build a map of democracy that is directly created by the citizens on the streets.
We first gathered the schedules and locations of protests through the official websites of major organizing groups and protest applications submitted to the police. This mapping helped identify key protest locations.
The blue dots represent groups advocating for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol, while the red dots indicate pro-Yoon supporters who oppose the impeachment. As the dots accumulate, they reveal the primary locations where protests most frequently occurred.
The main protest sites were Gwanghwamun Square—the largest public square in Seoul—the presidential residence in Hannam-dong, and the National Assembly building, where the impeachment vote took place. Over the course of four months, we mapped the scale of 16 major protests held at these three locations. Depending on the impeachment timeline, it is particularly interesting to observe how pro- and anti-Yoon groups either shared the same space or occupied separate streets. We estimated the spatial extent of each protest using images from news coverage and other visual references that suggested the size of the gatherings. To quantify protest size, we used Seoul’s Living Population dataset—a telecommunications-based dataset jointly developed by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and KT (Korea Telecom). This dataset estimates the total number of people present in a given area at a specific time, including those using other carriers or even those without mobile phones, through statistical extrapolation based on KT user data. It can be extracted in fine-grained units of at least 100 meters, allowing us to retrieve time-specific population data for protest zones. We documented 16 Saturdays over the four-month period following the imposition of martial law through to the passage of the impeachment resolution. To estimate protest attendance, we subtracted the average population on non-protest Saturdays (January 13, January 20, February 3, February 24, March 9, and March 23, 2024) from the living population recorded on protest days.
Through this mapping, we identified that the December 14 protest in Yeouido calling for the impeachment of President Yoon was the largest in scale, with an estimated turnout of 450,000 people. This massive mobilization reflects the public outrage following the automatic dismissal of the impeachment bill on December 7, due to the collective abstention of People Power Party lawmakers. Ultimately, the bill was passed by the National Assembly later that day at 5:00 PM.
The closest encounter between anti-Yoon and pro-Yoon protest groups occurred during the rally in Hannam-dong on January 4, which called for the arrest of the President. The two opposing groups were separated by a distance of only 100 meters.
On March 1st, a national holiday in South Korea, the scale of the protest visibly grew. Conservative groups often use this day as an opportunity to emphasize national identity and traditional values, leading to large-scale rallies. Since February 1st, internal power struggles within the pro-Yoon faction had split the protests between Gwanghwamun and Yeouido. However, on this particular day, the conservative camp appeared notably unified and concentrated in one location.
This project represents an effort to map true democratic sentiments not through the distorted or untrustworthy public opinion polls and media coverage, but through direct political actions, namely protests by citizens. It critically visualizes the complexity and incompleteness of modern Korean democracy by embracing, rather than avoiding, the inconsistencies and limitations of imperfect data and materials. Ultimately, the project aims to create an undistorted “map of democracy on the streets” through data generated by the citizens. Protests demonstrate how people make the most active use of the city. As David Harvey explains, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain urban identity, citizenship, and a sense of belonging in a capitalist city. In this context, occupying the streets is the most equal and clear method for citizens to express their opinions. Urban spaces are a crucial part of the political environment, serving as places where people gather to debate, deliberate, and interact with one another. Interestingly, the two sides differ in the ways they use the city and organize rallies. The impeachment supporters mainly consist of various citizens expressing themselves freely, whereas the impeachment opponents are notably characterized by occupational groups such as soldiers, religious figures, and YouTubers. Furthermore, because the politicians endorsed by each group differ, the streets they occupy also vary. This map is the conflict curve of Seoul itself. It can be used to trace the conflict curve and even anticipate physical violence. As the trial progressed, there was an increase in confrontational protests where both sides appeared simultaneously at the same location, and occasional clashes occurred. If this trend of the two sides drawing closer together is documented, it could serve as an indicator for predicting future physical confrontations. The visualized protest map will directly allow citizens to feel that their participation contributes to the overall scale and plays a role. Consequently, we expect that citizens' engagement in democracy will increase even further.
Data Sources
- Hourly Living Population by District in Seoul
- Protest Notification Records from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency
- Seoul Public CCTV Information
- Seoul Map (VWORLD)
- Protest Schedules – People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy
- Protest Schedules – Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
- Protest Schedules – Korean Women's Association United (Instagram) / Website
- Protest Schedules – National Defense Counsel for the President
- Protest Schedules – Gwanghwamun People's Rally
Image Sources
- Figure 01 – 22:23 President Yoon declared martial law. Source: JTBC.
- Figure 02 – 22:28 Police Deployed Around National Assembly. Source: Maeil Business Newspaper.
- Figure 03 – 22:30 Martial Law Forces Enter National Election Commission. Source: JTBC.
- Figure 04 – 22:45 The Members of the National Assembly are Called Emergency Assembly. Source: YouTube Channel of Lee Jae-myung.
- Figure 05 – 22:57 Police-enforced closure of the National Assembly. Source: Newsis.
- Figure 06 – 23:00 National Assembly Speaker Mr. Woo climbed over a wall. Source: Speaker's Office.
- Figure 07 – 23:10 Lee Jae-myung climbed over the National Assembly wall. Source: YouTube Channel of Lee Jae-myung.
- Figure 08 – 23:48 707 Special Forces and Armed Troops Enter National Assembly by Helicopter. Source: MBC.
- Figure 09 – 23:48 Aerial deployment inside the National Assembly. Source: The Washington Post.
- Figure 10 – 00:05 Martial law forces storm into the main building. Source: Yonhap News.
- Figure 11 – 00:30 Airborne Troops Penetrate National Assembly. Source: Yonhap News.
- Figure 12 – 01:00 Martial law lifted. Source: MBC.