Republic of Korea
Asia Oriental
Dynamic · Neon · Proud
South Korea has the world's fastest average internet speeds and highest per-capita smartphone ownership.
Más allá de la capital, las principales ciudades son Busan, Incheon, Daegu — cada una un centro de cultura regional, economía e historia. Seoul was rebuilt almost entirely after the Korean War left it in ruins in 1953 and now houses half the national population in a metropolitan area of 25 million — yet the Bukchon Hanok Village preserves a neighbourhood of 600-year-old tile-roofed hanok houses within walking distance of the glass towers of Gangnam.
El idioma oficial es coreano, que refleja el patrimonio cultural del país y lo conecta con una amplia comunidad internacional. Internacionalmente, Corea del Sur se contacta mediante el código +82. South Koreans have industrialised the concept of education to the degree that the university entrance exam, the Suneung, halts air traffic over Seoul to prevent noise during the listening section — a national pause in which even the military reschedules exercises around a single test day.
Corea del Sur comparte sus fronteras con Corea del Norte. El tráfico rodado circula por la derecha, en consonancia con la convención de
La vida económica y cotidiana se rige por la zona horaria de UTC+09:00, alineando el país con sus vecinos regionales.
Kimchi — fermented cabbage or radish with chilli, garlic and ginger — has been prepared in the Korean peninsula for over 2,000 years, and the kimjang tradition of communal winter fermentation was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2013, recognising it as a social practice as much as a culinary one.
Taekwondo was codified in South Korea in the 1950s partly as a nationalist project to distinguish Korean martial arts from Japanese karate after the colonial period, and its 1988 Seoul Olympics debut as a demonstration sport — on home soil — completed its transformation from regional tradition to global discipline.
Jeju Island, a volcanic shield island off the southern coast, rises to the 1,950-metre Hallasan crater, contains lava tube caves extending nine kilometres underground, and is home to the haenyeo — women free-divers who have harvested the seabed without equipment for over 1,500 years.