Korea is thousands of years old, but still unknown in Europe. A divided country. The North is a closed dictatorship under the Kim family. Our western image of the South is characterized by a modern economy between tradition and the digital world.
Location:
East Asia, between China and Japan
Size:
99,000 square kilometers
Climate:
Four seasons with scorching heat, humid summers and cold, dry winters (great differences between the subtropical region around Busan in the south and the north around Seoul, which is marked by Siberian winters)
Landscape:
99,000 square kilometers
Climate:
Four seasons with scorching heat, humid summers and cold, dry winters (great differences between the subtropical region around Busan in the south and the north around Seoul, which is marked by Siberian winters)
Landscape:
Almost 60 percent of mountainous, mostly young mixed forest, coniferous forest, four large rivers, 2400 km of coastline on the Yellow Sea, the Japanese Sea and Tsushima road
Highest mountain:
Hallasan (on the island of Jeju) 1950 meters
Capital:
Seoul, (metropolitan area) 23 million inhabitants; Other cities: Busan 3.8 million; Incheon 2.5 million; Daegu 2.5 million; Changwon-Masan-Jinhae 1.08 million
Population:
50 million inhabitants. 80 percent live in cities. One percent foreigners (1960: 25 million inhabitants)
Economy:
Mainly export-oriented industry (agriculture only 3 percent of the gross domestic product, 1960: 45 percent of agriculture)
Export:
30 percent electronics, telecommunications, TV, exports mainly to China, USA, Hong Kong and Japan
Gross domestic product per inhabitant:
2010: 20,000 US dollars (1960: 80 US dollars)
Religion (2005):
46 per cent without religion, 22 per cent Buddhists, 30 per cent Christians, the rest smaller religious communities
Education:
97 percent attend high school, literacy (Korean) 98 percent, 3.5 million students at 400 universities, very few foreign students
Division:
Border North and South Korea “Demilitarized Zone” (DMZ): 248 kilometers long