About Korea

General Information

Official Name of the Country

Official Name: Republic of Korea
Common name: South Korea

Location, Area

Korea is located in the northeastern peninsula in Asia. The area of its territory is 100,188.1 km². The Korean Peninsula is adjacent to China with its boundary along the Yalu River to its northwestern side, and shares its boundary with China and Russia along the Tumen River to its northeastern side. Surrounded by the sea in three sides, Korea's western coast is called the West Sea, eastern coast is called the East Sea and the southern coast is called the Southern Sea.

Korea's southern and western regions are mainly flatland while eastern and northern regions are mountainous. The Tae Baek Mountains is located along the Korean Peninsula's eastern coast and is also called the Baekdudaegan Mountain Range. Korea's representative islands are Jeju-do, Geoje-do, Jin-do and Ulleung-do. Jeju and Ulleung Islands are formed through volcano activities. Korea's Yellow Sea coast and southern coast are rias coast, and the tidal difference is big. (Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport)

Population

The total population of Korea is 51,635,256 (as of November 2018) and 9,784,112 reside in Seoul. The population density is 509/km² (as of November 1, 2015) and is the world's top 2 among countries that have a population of over 10 million. (Source: Ministry of the Government Administration and Home Affairs, CIA, Statistics Korea)

Flag (Taegeukgi)

Taegeukgi is composed of a taegeuk (blue/red) and four trigram of divination (gun: sky; gon: earth; gam: water; lee: fire). It was selected as the national flag during the emperor Gojong 20 years (1883). The red area in the Taegeuk pattern represents nobility and yang (positive) and the blue area represents hope and yin (negative principle in nature). Being located in each corner, gun, gon, gam and lee, symbolized sky, earth, water and fire; and achieve harmony with Taegeuk in the center.

National Flower (Mugunghwa)

The national flower of Korea is called the Mugunghwa, also known as the Rose of Sharon in western countries. The Mugunghwa is distributed all over Korea and it blooms from July to October. Once it blooms, it lasts at least for 100 days. Mugunghwa means 'blooming eternally!'

Currency

The currency unit of Korea is Won (₩) and issued in 6 kinds of coins and 4 types of bills.

Economy

As of 2017, Korea's GDP stood at 1.53 trillion U.S. dollars, and was the world's top 12 economy. Per capital GDP was 38,355 dollar (as of 2018). Its major exports commodities are petroleum products, automobiles, vessels and flat panel display (Source: IMF, Korea Customs Service).

Local Administrative System

Korea is divided into 17 municipal autonomous regions and 226 basic local governments. The municipal autonomous regions consist of 1 metropolitan city, 6 megalopolis, 1 special self-governing province. The basic local governments consist of 75 autonomous cities, 82 autonomous counties, 69 autonomous districts and there are a total of 3,503 eup, myeon and dong which are the sub-administrative districts of each basic local region (as of April 2018). Korea has a local self-governing system in operation and the local residents participate in the election every 4 years to elect head of the local autonomous region (Metropolitan: Mayor, Governor; Basic: Mayor, County Governor, District Governor) and district assemblymen and superintendents.

Weather

The Republic of Korea belongs to the warm temperature zone in the middle of latitude and has a very clear 4 seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter).

Spring: March to May

(Average temperature: 5.1~16.4 °C) The weather is clear and dry, there is a yellow dust from the desert of China and Mongolia in Spring.

Summer: June to August

(Average temperature: 20.9~25.2 °C) The weather is hot and humid. It comes to the intensive rainy or typhoons in Summer.

Autumn: September to November

(Average temperature: 7.6~21.1 °C) The weather is clear and cool. The sky is clear and the grain is ripe, also the leaves of the trees turn red or yellow in Autumn.

Winter: December to February

(Average temperature -2.1~0.9 °C) The weather is cold and dry by the effect of northwesterly wind, which is severe cold. There is a lot of snow in Winter.

Holidays, Public Holidays

There are New Year's Day and Chuseok as representing Korean holiday and Koreans have both Sinjeong (January 1 on Solar Calendar) and Gujeong (January 1 on Lunar Calendar) as New Year's Day and celebrate both days. Chuseok date is fixed by the Lunar Calendar.

Seolnal (Gujeong)

January 1, New Year's Day on the Lunar Calendar. Koreans eat "tteokguk" (rice cake soup), wear "Seolbim" (traditional Korean dress) and perform "Sebae" (type of bow) to parents, and senior relatives on Seolnal.