The study's focus was on differences in citizen perceptions of police across urban, mid-sized cities and rural areas in a country experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization. The survey was linked to an evaluation of the impact on public attitudes toward police after a number of police reform efforts. The survey was conducted for 10 days in the summer of 2001. Fifty people were surveyed in each police jurisdiction, resulting in 11,500 respondents. The survey found that residents of rural areas, older citizens, and residents with prior encounters with the police had more positive perceptions of the police. Higher socioeconomic status was negatively associated with perceptions of police only in rural areas; and those who had previous encounters with police perceived them negatively only in large urban areas. Similar to Western studies, city residents in South Korea had less positive perceptions of the police than did rural residents. Respondents of higher socioeconomic status perceived the police less positively. Younger citizens were less satisfied with the police than older citizens. These findings are compared with previous similar research in Asia and the United States and other Western countries. 5 tables, 67 references, and appended correlation matrix