Under the flag of the United Nations, a U. In July , after millions of deaths and enormous physical destruction, the war ended approximately were it began, with North and South Korea divided into roughly equal territories by the cease-fire line, a Demilitarized Zone DMZ that still forms the boundary between North and South Korea today.
Since , North and South Korea have evolved from a common cultural and historical base into two very different societies with radically dissimilar political and economic systems. The differences between North and South Korea today have little to do with pre regional differences between northern and southern Korea. North Korea developed into perhaps the most isolated and controlled of all communist states, and even 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, showed little sign of political and economic liberalization despite severe economic hardship.
South Korea, on the other hand, has been greatly influenced by the United States and, in a more subtle way, by Japan. The U. While South Korea has often been less democratic than Americans would like or the Korean leaders claimed it to be, since the fall of its military dictatorship in the late s democracy appears to have become increasingly consolidated in the R.
South Korea recovered rapidly from the Asian financial crisis of and is currently the third-largest economy in Eastern Asia, after Japan and China. As in many other countries, American popular culture is an important presence in South Korea. To a lesser extent, Japanese popular culture is influential as well. However, South Korea has developed its own distinctly Korean forms of popular culture, while traditional Korean culture has undergone something of a revival in recent decades.
By the late s and early s, South Korean pop music, film, and television dramas were becoming quite popular in other parts of Asia too, especially China and Vietnam. Despite the general cultural homogeneity of Korea, regional sentiment has become an important factor in South Korean politics and in other areas of contemporary life. The main regional division is between the Cholla area of the southwest and the Kyongsang area of the southeast.
Although some would claim that these regional differences go back to the ancient Three Kingdoms period, in fact modern South Korean regionalism is mostly a phenomenon originating in the rapid industrialization that began in the s. Meanwhile, Cholla remained relatively backward and was seen as a place of dissenters, including long-time opposition figure Kim Dae Jung.
After Kim Dae Jung became president in , he attempted to bring more regional balance to economic and political development in South Korea, but regional identification and prejudice remain strong.
The division of Korea into North and South was imposed upon the Korean people by outside forces, and many if not most Koreans insist that the two Koreas must one day be reunited. In the early s, mids, and early s, the two Koreas appeared to be reaching breakthroughs in inter-Korean relations, but each movement toward reconciliation and reunification ended in frustration.
This was the first time such a summit meeting had ever taken place, and the event once again raised expectations of reconciliation and eventual reunion between the two halves of the divided peninsula.
However, there is still very little contact between the governments or the people of North and South Korea, and barring a dramatic turn of events, the hope for reunification appears to be a long way off.
In addition to the 46 million people in South Korea and 23 million in the North, some 6 to 7 million people of Korean descent, or approximately 10 percent of the population of the two Koreas combined, live outside the Korean peninsula.
The largest communities of overseas Koreans are in China two million , the United States over one million , Japan , , and the former Soviet Union , , mostly in the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The Korean diaspora is distinctive both for its relative size and the fact that it is almost entirely a twentieth-century phenomenon, with the exception of Koreans in China and Russia, who began to immigrate there in large numbers in the s.
There were no Koreans in U. Koreans were first brought to Hawaii in as workers in the sugarcane fields. Later, Koreans settled increasingly on the U. Koreans in the U. By the s, Koreans were among the most rapidly growing groups of immigrants to the United States. Immigration from Korea leveled off after and began to decline in the early s, but increased slightly again after the Asian financial crisis hit South Korea in The main concentrations of Koreans in the U.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, South Korea is among the major industrialized nations of the world and is widely recognized as a success in economic development and political democratization. South Korea has evolved remarkably from the poor, backward country that emerged from the shadows of Japanese colonial rule in It is also a country with a strong sense of national identity and great pride in its culture, traditions, and accomplishments.
At the same time, Korea remains divided into North and South, with nearly two million men under arms on the peninsula and a high state of military tension. As it has for more than a century, Korea occupies a strategic place on the world map, and any conflict on the peninsula would have the potential to draw in neighboring countries, if not farther.
Unsupported Browser Detected. Korean History and Political Geography. The Two Koreas Since , North and South Korea have evolved from a common cultural and historical base into two very different societies with radically dissimilar political and economic systems.
The Korean Diaspora In addition to the 46 million people in South Korea and 23 million in the North, some 6 to 7 million people of Korean descent, or approximately 10 percent of the population of the two Koreas combined, live outside the Korean peninsula.
Author: Charles K. Schools and universities forbade speaking Korean and emphasized manual labor and loyalty to the Emperor.
Public places adopted Japanese, too, and an edict to make films in Japanese soon followed. It also became a crime to teach history from non-approved texts and authorities burned over , Korean historical documents, essentially wiping out the historical memory of Korea. Japanese officers in Korea. One of the most powerful symbols of Korean sovereignty and independence was its royal palace, Gyeongbokgung, which was built in Seoul in by the mighty Joseon dynasty.
The Shrine of One Thousand Steps, the Shinto shrine which was built in from forced Korean donations, still remains but is used as a city park. The occupation government also worked to assimilate Koreans with the help of language, religion and education. Shinto shrines originally intended for Japanese families became places of forced worship. This forced worship was viewed as an act of cultural genocide by many Koreans, but for the colonists, it was seen as evidence that Koreans and Japanese were a single, unified people.
Though some families got around the Shinto edict by simply visiting the shrines and not praying there, others grudgingly adopted the new religious practices out of fear. At first, the colonial government made it illegal for people to adopt Japanese-style names, ostensibly to prevent confusion in family registries.
But in , the government made changing names an official policy. At least 84 percent of all Koreans took on the names, since people who lacked Japanese names were not recognized by the colonial bureaucracy and were shut out of everything from mail delivery to ration cards. Throughout the occupation, protest movements pushed for Korean independence. In , the March First Movement proclaimed Korean independence and more than 1, demonstrations broke out. The protests were brutally suppressed by the Japanese, but not before the desire for independence swept through Korea.
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