To the best of our knowledge, our results are derived from a larger population including smokers than in previous reports[25–35] and ours is the first report on the prevalence of chronic cough in the Korean population. We found the overall prevalence of chronic cough in the general adult Korean population to be 2.5% ± 0.2%, and the common possible causes, in descending order, to be current smoking, UACS, COPD, asthma, and chest radiographic abnormalities. This pattern was not different according to smoking status, although COPD was more prevalent in cigarette smokers.