The purpose of the this study was to provide the basic information about the formation background of urban squatter and their housing state in Korea. This study was progressed on the basis of socio-historical point of view from after the Korean War to the present time. Therefore, this study considered the meaning of housing for urban squatter in the Korean housing history. For this study, the formation background of urban squatter was divided into five periods. The first one was the period of the policy on the mass migration (1955-1960) after the Korean War. The second period was the period of reproduction of deteriorated residential area (1960-1970) for the continuing mass migration policy. The third was the period of disbanding of deteriorated residential area (1970-1980) for redevelopment. The forth period was before the IMF (1980-1997) broke up the deteriorated residential area. The fifth period was after the IMF (1997-) produced the new poverty due to the unemployment and the business failure. Thus, such social change increased the number of urban squatter and created the new type urban poor.