Facts about South Korea

• Korea has 6,228 km of coastline and nearly 3,000 islands located mainly in the Yellow Sea and Korea Strait. Only a few of them lie off the East Sea.
• Its total area is 38,462.49 square miles.
• Its terrain is mostly rugged and mountainous with little arable land.
• Hallasan, an extinct volcano at a height of 1950 meters is the highest point in South Korea.
• It is also known as ‘Hermit Kingdom’ and ‘Land of the Morning Calm’.
• South Korea has a Continental climate with hot, humid summers and dry, cold winters.
• The major cities of South Korea are Seoul, Pusan, Taegu, Inchan and Kwangju.
• Its largest and capital city is Seoul, which is the world’s second-largest metropolitan city.
• Their national anthem is ‘Aegukka’ (The Song of Love of Country) which was adopted on August 15,1948.
• Confucianism, shamanism (traditional spirit worship), Christianity, Buddhism and Chondokyo (Religion of the Heavenly Way) are the religions followed in South Korea.
• Korean is the main language and English is widely taught in schools. The Korean language is related to the Mongolian and Japanese languages. A large number of Chinese cognates exist in the Korean language. Around 1,300 Chinese characters are used in modern Korean.
• It has a population of over 49 million people by current estimates.
• It is one of the world’s leading economies and has a large and sophisticated technological base. It has the 13th-largest economy in the world and the third- largest in Asia.
• It has the seventh largest fishing industry in the world.
• It is known as one of the Four Asian Tiger economies.
• It has 63 daily newspapers.