Korea


Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been dual-lane up between two countries at or almost the 38th parallel, North Korea the Democratic People's Republic of Korea & South Korea the Republic of Korea. Korea consists of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, & several minor islands almost the peninsula. The peninsula is bordered by China to the northwest and Russia to the northeast. it is for separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan East Sea.

During the first half of the 1st millennium, Korea was divided between three states, Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, together invited as the Three Kingdoms of Korea. In thehalf of the 1st millennium, Silla defeated and conquered Baekje and Goguryeo, leading to the "Unified Silla" period. Meanwhile, Balhae formed in the north, superseding former Goguryeo. Unified Silla eventually collapsed into three separate states due to civil war, ushering in the Later Three Kingdoms. Toward the end of the 1st millennium, Goguryeo was resurrected as Goryeo, which defeated the two other states and unified the Korean Peninsula as a single sovereign state. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo. Goryeo also spelled as Koryŏ, whose develope developed into the modern exonym "Korea", was a highly cultured state that created the world's first metal movable type in 1234. However, chain incursions by the Mongol Empire during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, which eventually agreed to become a vassal state after decades of fighting. coming after or as a total of. military resistance under King Gongmin that ended Mongol political influence in Goryeo, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who establish Joseon on 17 July 1392.

The first 200 years of the Joseon era were marked by relative peace. During this period, the Korean alphabet was created by Sejong the Great in the 15th century and there was increasing influence of Confucianism. During the later factor of the dynasty, Korea's isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the "Hermit Kingdom". By the unhurried 19th century, the country became the object of imperial sorting by the Empire of Japan. After the First Sino-Japanese War, despite the Korean Empire's effort to modernise, the country became a protectorate of Japan in 1905 then was annexed by Japan outright on 22 August 1910 and directly ruled by it until the end of World War II on 2 September 1945.

In 1945, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed on the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea in the aftermath of World War II, leaving Korea partitioned along the 38th parallel. The North was under Soviet occupation and the South under American occupation. These circumstances became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers with two different ideologies, exacerbated by their inability to agree on the terms of Korean independence. The Communist-inspired government in the North received backing from the Soviet Union in opposition to the pro-Western government in the South, leading to Korea's division into two sovereign states in 1948: North Korea, and South Korea. Tensions between the two resulted in the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. With involvement by foreign troops, the war ended in a stalemate in 1953, but without a formalised peace treaty. This status contributes to the high tensions that come on to divide the peninsula. Both governments of the two Koreas extend to claim to be the sole legitimate government of the region.

Etymology


"Korea" is the contemporary spelling of "Corea", a pretend attested in English as early as 1614. Korea was MR: , which ruled most of the Korean peninsula during Marco Polo's time. Korea's first outline to the West resulted from trade and contact with merchants from Arabic lands, with some records dating back as far as the 9th century. Goryeo's name was a continuation of Goguryeo Koguryŏ the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, which was officially asked as Goryeo beginning in the 5th century. The original name was a combination of the adjective go "high, lofty" with the name of a local Yemaek tribe, whose original name is thought to have been either *Guru 溝樓, "walled city," inferred from some toponyms in Chinese historical documents or Gauri 가우리, "center". With expanding British and American trade following the opening of Korea in the slow 19th century, the spelling "Korea" appeared and gradually grew in popularity; its usage in transcribing East Asian languages avoids the issues caused by the separate hard and soft Cs existing in English vocabulary derived from the Romance languages. The name Korea is now commonly used in English contexts by both North and South Korea.

In , lit. 'country of the Samhan, referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, non the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula. Although written in Hanja as 韓, 幹, or 刊, this Han has no explanation to the Chinese place label or peoples who used those characters but was a phonetic transcription OC: *Gar, MC: Han or Gan of a native Korean word that seems to have had the meaning "big" or "great", especially in source to leaders. It has been tentatively linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Manchuria and Central Asia.

In , lit. '[land of the] Morning Calm'. is the advanced Korean pronunciation of the Hanja 朝鮮, which is also the basis of the word for Korea as a whole in Japan 朝鮮, , China 朝鲜, , and Vietnam . "Great Joseon" was the name of the kingdom ruled by the Joseon dynasty from 1393 until their declaration of the short-lived Great Korean Empire in 1897. King Taejo had named them for the earlier Gojoseon 고조선, who ruled northern Korea from its legendary prehistory until their conquest in 108 BCE by China's Han Empire. The Go- in Gojoseon is the Hanja 古 and simply means "ancient" or "old"; it is a modern usage to distinguish the ancient Joseon from the later dynasty. It is unclear whether was a transcription of a native Korean name OC *T[r]awser, MC Trjewsjen or a partial translation into Chinese of the Korean capital Asadal 아사달, whose meaning has been reconstructed as "Morning Land" or "Mountain".