South Korea

South Korea is a country in East Asia.

The sea is on three sides of it. Most of the land is mountains and hills. Many people live in big cities. The capital city is called Seoul.

South Korea is in East Asia, on the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The Yellow Sea lies to the west, the East Sea (also called the Sea of Japan) to the east and the East China Sea to the south. Across the Korea Strait to the southeast lies the Japanese island of Tsushima.

Most of South Korea is mountains and hills, with small valleys and narrow plains along the coasts. Since 1960, cities have grown enormously while many country areas have lost people. Seoul, the capital, is by far the biggest city. The census counted about 51.8 million people in South Korea in 2025.

South Korea makes up about 45 percent of the peninsula's land. Britannica gives its sea boundaries as the East Sea (Sea of Japan) to the east, the East China Sea to the south and the Yellow Sea to the west, with the Korea Strait separating it from Tsushima to the southeast. Much of the country is Precambrian granite and gneiss, more than about 540 million years old: largely mountainous, with small valleys and narrow coastal plains.

The census by the Ministry of Data and Statistics (formerly Statistics Korea) counted 51.82 million people in 2025, up 0.02 percent; Korean nationals fell to 49.71 million while foreign residents rose to 2.11 million, a record 4.1 percent, and the median age reached 46.8. Britannica identifies rapid urban growth and rural depopulation since 1960 as the country's main demographic issues.

Seoul is the biggest city in South Korea.

It has tall towers and old palaces with gardens. Busan is a big city by the sea. Ships come and go from its harbor. Jeju is an island with a volcano in the middle.

Seoul is the country's political, business and cultural center, and the cities around it have grown together into Greater Seoul. Under the name Hanyang, it was the capital of the Joseon dynasty, which began in 1392. In Seoul, the palace of Changdeokgung, built in the early 1400s, sits in gardens shaped to fit the hilly land. Busan, on the southeast coast, Incheon, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju and Ulsan each have at least a million people.

In Suwon, south of Seoul, King Jeongjo built Hwaseong Fortress at the end of the 1700s; its walls, almost 6 kilometers long, still stand. Off the south coast, Jeju Island has Mount Halla, lava tube caves and the Seongsan Ilchulbong cone rising from the sea.

Britannica describes Seoul as by far the largest city, with satellite cities such as Anyang, Seongnam, Suwon and Bucheon forming Greater Seoul; Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju and Ulsan also have at least a million people. Britannica's Joseon article dates the dynasty from 1392 to 1910, with its capital at Hanyang, present-day Seoul.

UNESCO inscribed Changdeokgung (1997), a palace that King Taejong ordered in the early 15th century, with official and residential buildings in a garden adapted to the uneven 58-ha site; and Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon (1997), built when King Jeongjo moved his father's tomb there at the end of the 18th century, whose walls of nearly 6 km, with four gates, bastions and artillery towers, combined Eastern and Western military ideas. Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes (2007) covers 18,846 ha: the Geomunoreum lava tube system, the Seongsan Ilchulbong tuff cone and Mount Halla, Korea's highest mountain, with its lake-filled crater. Gyeongju's historic areas (2000) preserve art and palace remains, especially from the 7th to 10th centuries.

South Korea has many mountains.

The tallest is Mount Halla, an old volcano on Jeju Island. Big rivers run to the sea. In summer it is hot and rainy. In winter it is cold, and snow falls in the mountains.

The Taebaek Mountains run north to south along the east coast, and other ranges branch off them. None of the mainland mountains is very high: Mount Seorak is 1,708 meters and Mount Jiri 1,915 meters. The highest peak, Mount Halla on Jeju Island, is an extinct volcano 1,947 meters tall. The Han, Geum and Nakdong rivers start in the Taebaek Mountains; the Nakdong is the longest, at 523 kilometers.

The east coast is fairly straight, but the west and south coasts are full of bays and islands. The Yellow Sea is shallow, and the tide at Incheon can rise and fall by about 9 meters. Winters are cold and dry and summers hot and humid, with up to three-fifths of the year's rain falling from June to August.

The Taebaek Mountains run roughly north-south near the east coast, forming the drainage divide, and the Sobaek Mountains curve across the peninsula in a long S; Seorak reaches 1,708 m and Jiri 1,915 m. The highest peak is the extinct volcano Halla on Jeju: 1,947.269 m, the height the National Archives of Korea gives for South Korea's highest peak, which Britannica rounds to 1,950 m. Jeju and Ulleung are volcanic islands. Nearly all rivers flow west or south to the Yellow Sea or the East China Sea; the Nakdong runs 523 km to the Korea Strait. The shallow Yellow Sea and the indented ria coasts of the west and south produce tides of up to about 9 m at Incheon, which Britannica calls one of the most pronounced tidal variations in the world.

The climate is continental, with northeast Asian monsoons: January averages about −5 °C in Seoul and 2 °C in Busan, August about 25 °C nationwide. The mainland receives 900–1,500 mm of precipitation, southern Jeju more than 1,800 mm, up to three-fifths of it in the June–August summer monsoon; late-summer typhoons sometimes strike the south coast. UNESCO's Getbol tidal flats (2021, extended 2026) record 2,454 plant and animal species along the Yellow Sea coast.

Deer are the most common big wild animals.

Many birds fly in for part of the year. Cranes visit the wetlands. Many small creatures live in the muddy shores by the sea.

Deer are the most numerous larger wild animals in South Korea. Tigers, leopards, lynx and bears were once common but have almost disappeared. About 380 kinds of birds are found there, and most of them are migrants that come and go with the seasons.

Along the west and south coasts, huge muddy tidal flats called getbol are full of life. UNESCO counts 2,454 kinds of plants and animals there, including a great variety of small creatures without backbones, and 216 kinds of birds, many of which stop there to feed and rest on their migrations. South Korea also has about 4,500 kinds of plants, including the Korean fir, a native tree.

Britannica describes the wildlife as similar to that of northern and northeastern China. Deer are the most numerous larger mammals; tigers, leopards, lynx and bears, formerly abundant, have almost disappeared. Some 380 bird species occur, most of them seasonal migrants, and many fish, reptiles and amphibians are threatened by intensive cultivation and pollution. The demilitarized zone, almost untouched since 1953, has become a de facto nature preserve with forests, estuaries and wetlands, sheltering hundreds of bird species, among them the endangered white-naped and red-crowned cranes, and Asiatic black bears and lynxes.

The Getbol tidal flats on the Yellow Sea coast hold 2,454 recorded species, including 53 endemic to the Yellow Sea, and support 216 bird species, 24 of them globally threatened, at the heart of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. About 4,500 plant species are known; evergreen broad-leaved forest survives only on the subtropical south coast and Jeju, and the Korean fir (Abies koreana) and white forsythia (Abeliophyllum distichum) are indigenous.

About 51.8 million people live in South Korea.

They speak Korean. Korean is written with letters called Hangul. Meals have rice, soup and a spicy pickled dish called kimchi.

About 51.8 million people lived in South Korea in 2025. Almost everyone is ethnically Korean and speaks Korean, which is written in an alphabet called Hangul, made of letters for 10 vowels and 14 consonants. It was created in 1443, during the reign of King Sejong. People from many other countries live and work there too.

A Korean meal usually has rice, a soup or stew, and several side dishes, nearly always including kimchi, pickled vegetables. Two of the biggest holidays are Seollal, the Lunar New Year, and Chuseok, a harvest festival. Families often gather, and traditions include greeting elders respectfully, eating special rice cakes and wearing hanbok, traditional clothes.

The 2025 census counted 51.82 million residents, with 20.7 percent aged 65 or older (16 percent in 2020) and 36.6 percent of households made of one person. Britannica describes the population as highly homogeneous, almost entirely ethnically Korean, with a growing number of foreign residents, especially in big cities. Korean contains many Chinese loanwords and is written in Hangul, phonetic symbols for 10 vowels and 14 consonants, created in 1443 under King Sejong; Chinese characters are still sometimes mixed in, though less and less.

There is no national religion and freedom of religion is guaranteed. Britannica notes that Confucian principles remain evident in family relationships and that Buddhism stays influential; about a quarter of people profess Christianity. Traditional cuisine, emphasizing rice and fresh vegetables, still dominates even urban diets: a meal of rice, soup or stew and side dishes, almost invariably including kimchi. Seollal and Chuseok, set by the lunar calendar, bring formal greetings of elders, rice cakes (dduk) and hanbok, which most people now wear only on special occasions.