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— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

South Korea

~9 min read · Ch. 1 of 8
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  • South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands. About 52 million people live here, and half of them are packed into the Seoul metropolitan area, the ninth most populous in the world. A war that began in 1950 left three million Koreans dead and the economy in ruins. That war never formally ended. No peace treaty was ever signed, so the Korean conflict is technically still ongoing along the most heavily fortified border on Earth.

    A peninsula inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period produced a kingdom noted in Chinese records in the early seventh century BC. From that ancient beginning came rival kingdoms, a hermit kingdom, a foreign occupation, and a division that split families along a line two officials drew in a single sitting. How did a country whose cities were almost entirely destroyed become the world's 14th-largest economy. Why does a single word, Goryeo, still echo in the name foreigners use for the country. And what does it mean to remain at war with the neighbor that shares your language, your history, and your land.

  • Goryeo was the shortened name officially adopted by Goguryeo in the 5th century, and it passed to a 10th-century successor state of the same name. Visiting Arab and Persian merchants pronounced it "Korea", and that pronunciation stuck to the land in the mouths of outsiders. The name appears in the first Portuguese maps of 1568 by Joao vaz Dourado as Conrai, and later as Corea in the maps of Teixeira Albernaz of 1630.

    Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca in 1511 and described the people who traded in that part of the world as the Gores, which is how the Kingdom of Goryeo first became known to Westerners. The spellings Corea and Korea coexisted in 19th-century publications. Some Koreans believe Imperial Japan deliberately standardized Korea during the occupation, so that Japan would appear first in alphabetical order.

    When the Kingdom of Joseon replaced Goryeo in 1392, Joseon became the official name, drawn from the ancient kingdom of Gojoseon. In 1897, King Gojong changed the name from Joseon to the Korean Empire, whose Korean form was Daehan. That half of the name derives from Samhan, the Three Han, a reference to the Three Kingdoms of Korea rather than the southern confederacies. After Japan's surrender in 1945, "Republic of Korea" became the legal English name for the new country.

  • In 108 BC, the Han dynasty defeated Wiman Joseon and installed four commanderies in the northern peninsula. Three fell or retreated within a few decades, but the Lelang commandery endured as a center of exchange for four centuries, until Goguryeo conquered it in 313. From the states of Buyeo, Okjeo, Dongye, and Samhan emerged the Three Kingdoms of Korea: Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla.

    Goguryeo, the largest and most militaristic, defeated a Chinese force said to number over a million men in the Goguryeo-Sui War. Under Gwanggaeto the Great and his son Jangsu, it briefly subdued Baekje and Silla and became the dominant power on the peninsula. Baekje, sometimes called the "Phoenicia of East Asia", used its maritime ability to spread Buddhism throughout the region and carry continental culture to Japan.

    Silla was the smallest and weakest, yet it survived through opportunistic pacts, eventually allying with Tang China. In 676, Silla unified most of the peninsula for the first time, beginning the Northern and Southern States period. To the north, Balhae, founded by a Goguryeo general, controlled most of Manchuria and parts of the Russian Far East and was called the "Prosperous Country in the East".

    Late Silla grew wealthy, and its capital Gyeongju became the fourth largest city in the world. It enjoyed a golden age of art exemplified by Hwangnyongsa, Seokguram, and the Emille Bell. Korean Buddhists won fame in Chinese circles, among them Kim Gyo-gak, a Silla prince whose influence made Mount Jiuhua one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism.

  • In 936, Wang Geon united the Later Three Kingdoms and established Goryeo as a successor to Goguryeo. Balhae had already fallen to the Khitan Empire in 926, and a decade later its last crown prince fled south, where Wang Geon welcomed him into the ruling family. Goryeo invented the metal movable type printing press, and after defeating the Khitan it enjoyed a golden age during which the Tripitaka Koreana was completed. By 1100 there were 12 universities producing notable scholars.

    Three decades of Mongol invasions in the 13th century left Goryeo severely weakened but never fully conquered, and it submitted as a vassal to the Yuan dynasty. The crown prince pledged allegiance to Kublai Khan, who accepted Goryeo as a semi-autonomous ally and sealed the arrangement through marriage. For 86 years all subsequent Korean kings married Mongol princesses.

    In 1392, General Yi Seong-gye was ordered to attack China but turned his army around and staged a successful coup. He renamed the nation Joseon and moved the capital to Hanseong, one of the old names of Seoul. Sejong the Great created Hangul to promote literacy among common people, and the ruling ideal was the seonbi, nobles who gave up wealth and power for lives of study and integrity.

    Between 1592 and 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched invasions of Korea, halted by Admiral Yi Sun-sin and his "turtle ship", civilian righteous army militias, and Ming Chinese troops. The Manchus then invaded in 1627 and 1637. By the 19th century, isolationism had earned Joseon the nickname "the hermit kingdom", until the Joseon-United States Treaty of 1882 forced it to open its borders.

  • Japan compelled Korea to become its protectorate in 1905 and formally annexed it in 1910, beginning a period of forced assimilation that suppressed the Korean language, culture, and history. This produced the March First Movement protests in 1919 and resistance groups in exile, primarily in China, among them the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.

    Dean Rusk and Charles H. Bonesteel III suggested the 38th parallel as a dividing line because it placed Seoul under U.S. control. To their surprise, the Soviets accepted the proposal. Despite the 1943 Cairo Declaration's promise of a unified peninsula, rising tensions split Korea into two political entities in 1948.

    In the South, the United States backed Syngman Rhee, former head of the Korean Provisional Government, who won the first presidential elections in May 1948. In the North, the Soviets backed Kim Il Sung, a former anti-Japanese guerrilla appointed premier in September. South Korea requested American military support but was denied, while the Soviet Union heavily reinforced the North.

  • On the 25th of June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea and sparked the Korean War. The Soviet Union had boycotted the UN and forfeited its veto rights, which allowed the UN to intervene as superior North Korean forces threatened to unify the country. The Soviet Union and China backed the North, with millions of Chinese troops eventually joining the fight.

    During the war, Rhee's party promoted the One-People Principle, an effort to build an obedient citizenry through ethnic homogeneity and authoritarian nationalism. After an ebb and flow in which both sides faced defeat with massive civilian losses, the war reached a stalemate.

    The 1953 armistice, never signed by South Korea, split the peninsula along the demilitarized zone near the original demarcation line. The conflict had a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War, and virtually all of Korea's major cities were destroyed. Because no peace treaty followed, the two countries remain technically at war, sharing the world's most heavily fortified border to this day.

  • In 1960, the April Revolution student uprising forced the resignation of President Syngman Rhee, followed by 13 months of instability under the weak Second Republic. The 16th of May 1961 coup led by General Park Chung Hee broke that instability. Park oversaw rapid export-led growth enforced by political repression, built the nationwide expressway and Seoul subway systems, and in 1972 created a constitution granting himself dictatorial powers and unlimited six-year terms. His 17-year tenure ended with his assassination on the 26th of October 1979.

    General Chun Doo-hwan led the coup of December Twelfth in 1979 and expanded martial law nationwide on the 17th of May 1980. He sent special forces to suppress the Gwangju Democratization Movement of 18-the 27th of May 1980, at a cost of probably 500 to 2,000 civilian lives and 26 dead soldiers, half of them by friendly fire.

    Chun ruled until 1987, when a Seoul National University student, Park Jong-chul, was tortured to death. On June 10, the Catholic Priests Association for Justice revealed the killing, igniting the June Democratic Struggle. Chun's party and its leader Roh Tae-woo announced the June 29 Declaration, which promised a democratic presidential election.

    South Koreans call this transformation the Miracle on the Han River. The economy recorded the fastest rise in average GDP per capita in the world between 1980 and 1990, lifting the country into the ranks of the Four Asian Tigers alongside Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

  • Roh Tae-woo won the 1987 election by a narrow margin over Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam. Seoul hosted the Olympic Games in 1988, a boost to the country's global image, and South Korea joined the United Nations in 1991 at the same time as North Korea. In 1998, Kim Dae-jung was sworn in as the eighth president, a man who had once been a political prisoner sentenced to death, later commuted to exile.

    Kim Dae-jung pursued the Sunshine Policy of engagement, and in June 2000 a North-South summit took place in Pyongyang, then ruled by Kim Jong Il. Later that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for democracy, human rights, and reconciliation with North Korea. In March 2010, the warship ROKS Cheonan was sunk, killing 46 South Korean sailors, and in November 2010 a North Korean artillery barrage struck Yeonpyeongdo, killing four.

    In 2012, South Korea elected its first female president, Park Geun-hye, daughter of Park Chung Hee. Accused of corruption involving her friend Choi Soon-sil, she was removed from office after nationwide demonstrations beginning in November 2016, and in April 2018 was sentenced to 24 years in jail. Moon Jae-in took office on the 10th of May 2017, and hosted the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

    Yoon Suk Yeol won by the narrowest margin in the history of the Sixth Republic and was sworn in on the 10th of May 2022. He declared martial law on the 3rd of December 2024, accusing the opposition of pro-North Korean activities. The National Assembly nullified the declaration in a unanimous 190-0 vote, and Yoon ended it early on December 4. He was impeached on the 14th of December 2024, and removed from office on the 4th of April 2025. Lee Jae-myung succeeded him, taking office on the 4th of June 2025.

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Common questions

What is the official name of South Korea and where is it located?

South Korea is officially the Republic of Korea, a country in East Asia. It occupies the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and the Sea of Japan to the east.

When did the Korean War start and how did it end?

The Korean War began on the 25th of June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. It ended in 1953 with an armistice, never signed by South Korea, that split the peninsula along the demilitarized zone. No peace treaty was ever signed, so the two countries remain technically at war.

How did Korea get its name?

The name Korea is an exonym derived from the kingdom name Goryeo, which Goguryeo officially adopted as a shortened form in the 5th century. Visiting Arab and Persian merchants pronounced it as "Korea", and the modern name appears in the first Portuguese maps of 1568 by Joao vaz Dourado as Conrai.

What is the Miracle on the Han River?

The Miracle on the Han River is the name South Koreans give to their period of rapid economic growth. South Korea recorded the fastest rise in average GDP per capita in the world between 1980 and 1990, emerging as one of the Four Asian Tigers alongside Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

How did South Korea become a democracy?

South Korea endured dictatorships punctuated by coups and uprisings until the June Democratic Struggle of 1987 ended authoritarian rule. That struggle was ignited after the Seoul National University student Park Jong-chul was tortured to death, and it led to the June 29 Declaration promising a democratic presidential election and the current Sixth Republic.

What happened when President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in South Korea?

Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on the 3rd of December 2024, accusing the opposition of pro-North Korean activities. The National Assembly nullified it in a unanimous 190-0 vote, Yoon ended it early on December 4, and he was impeached on the 14th of December 2024, then removed from office on the 4th of April 2025.

Who is the legendary founder of ancient Korea?

According to Korea's founding mythology, the history of Korea begins with the founding of Joseon, also known as Gojoseon, in 2333 BC by the legendary Dangun. Gojoseon was later noted in Chinese records in the early 7th century BC.

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