South Korea

South Korea is a country situated in East Asia, it shares its borders with North Korea and has access to the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea. It is a pretty well known Countryhumans character. South Korea is famous for Kpop, their history and culture, popular food and tourism.

Appearance
Normally they are drawn male with a white k-pop hoodie with blue and red galaxy-looking sleeves, with a red T-shirt underneath. Also commonly found as a girl character but generally in a male form. Sometimes depicted with animal attributes, the same as that of Japan.

Personality
South Korea usually tries to keep a positive outlook and is described as hyper-active, overexcited, and overly kind. Everyone talks about them as a kind of child stuck inside an adult's body. They can sometimes be down but usually never shows it on his face.

Interests
South Korea is kinda good when it's about e-sport. They have an interest in K-pop, a genre of music originally from Korea. They also love all K-drama and loves to watch mukbang. LOVES music and anything that's artistic. Loves to do the typical "finger heart".

Flag meaning
The flag of South Korea features four colors: white, black, red and blue. The white background is a traditional color in Korean culture that symbolizes purity and peace. The color of black is used for the four trigrams, each representing a different virtue.

Others symbols
The hibiscus and the Siberian tiger are symbols of South Korea.

Nicknames
S.K, Pepsi Flag, Cocoa, and Kakao, because KakaoTalk is a popular text-type app generated from Korea.

Etymology
The word Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, which was pronounced by the visiting Persian merchants as "Corea". This was later written as Korea. South Korea's official name is in fact not South Korea, but the Republic of Korea. This is because South Korea does not recognise North Korea as a country, and they claim the entire Korean peninsula as theirs. The only other country to do this is Japan. North Korea also does not recognise South Korea. This happened after the Korean war. Both South and North Koreans don't see themselves as South or North Koreans, rather they see themselves as just Korean.

Origin of languages
The Korean language is sometimes classified as a part of a northern Asian language group known as Altaic, that includes Turkish, Mongolian and Japanese, suggesting early Northern migrations and trade. However, most people say that the similarities are most likely coincidental, and classify Korean as a stand-alone language. Korean was also heavily influenced by Chinese, but had adopted its own writing system by the 16th century.

History
At the World War I, Japan invaded Korea and had taken control of Korea. After the 2 atomic bombs were dropped in Japan, Japan retreated back to their lands leaving South Korea alone. USSR took North Korea making them part of their communist, on the other hand, America had supported South Korea. The Korean War occurred and nearly when all South Koreans were defeated by North Koreans, America and the UN came to the rescue fighting back at the communist. The fight was brutal until the border was made right in the middle of Korea.

South Korea is an East Asian nation of some 51 million people located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula, which borders the East Sea (Sea of Japan) and the Yellow Sea. The United States and Soviet Union divided control over the peninsula after World War II, and in 1948 the U.S.-supported Republic of Korea (or South Korea) was established in the capital city of Seoul.

Beginnings
Around A.D. 668, several competing kingdoms were unified into a single dominion on the Korean Peninsula. Successive regimes maintained Korean political and cultural independence for more than a thousand years; the last of these ruling kingdoms would be the Choson Dynasty (1392-1910).

After surviving invasions by Japan at the end of the 16th century and the Manchus of East Asia in the early 17th, Korea chose to limit its contact with the outside world. A 250-year-long period of peace followed, with few Koreans traveling outside their isolated country.

This began to change in the late 19th century, when Western powers like Britain, France and the United States made efforts to open trade and diplomatic relations with Korea, with little success.

Colonial period
At the outset of the 20th century, Japan, China and Russia vied for control over the Korean Peninsula. Japan emerged the victor, occupying the peninsula in 1905, at the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War and formally annexing it five years later.

Over 35 years of colonial rule, Korea became an industrialized country, but its people suffered brutal repression at the hands of the Japanese, who tried to wipe out its distinctive language and cultural identity and make Koreans culturally Japanese.

During World War II, many Korean men were compelled to serve in Japan’s army or work in wartime factories, while thousands of Korean women were forced into providing sexual services for Japanese soldiers, becoming known as “comfort women.”

Korea divided
After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union divided the peninsula into two zones of influence. By August 1948, the pro-U.S. Republic of Korea (or South Korea) was established in Seoul, led by the strongly anti-communist Syngman Rhee.

In the north, the Soviets installed Kim Il Sung as the first premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), better known as North Korea, with its capital at Pyongyang.

Korean
South Korea’s declaration of independence in 1950 led North Korea, backed by China and the Soviet Union, to invade its neighbor in an effort to regain control of the entire peninsula.

U.S. and United Nations troops fought alongside South Korean forces in the Korean War, which would cost some 2 million lives before it ended in 1953.

The armistice agreement left the Korean Peninsula divided much as before, with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) running along latitude 38 degrees North, or the 38th parallel.

Park chung-hee
Over the decades to come, South Korea maintained a continued close relationship with the United States, which included military, economic and political support.

Though ostensibly a republic, its citizens initially enjoyed limited political freedom, and in 1961 a military coup put General Park Chung-hee into power.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, under Park’s regime, South Korea enjoyed a period of rapid industrial development and economic growth (achieving a per capita income some 17 times that of North Korea).

From military rule to democracy
Park was assassinated in 1979, and another general, Chun Doo-hwan took power, putting the country under strict military rule. An armed uprising by students and others to restore democratic rule led to many civilian deaths at the army’s hands.

Martial law was lifted in 1981, and Chun was (indirectly) elected president under a new constitution, which established the Fifth Republic.

By 1987, popular dissatisfaction with the government and mounting international pressure pushed Chun from office in advance of another revised constitution, which allowed direct election of the president for the first time.

Roh Tae-woo, a former army general who won the country’s first free presidential election in 1987, further liberalized the political system and tackled corruption within the government.

Seoul Olympics
The reforms of the Sixth Republic came just in time for South Korea to host a successful Summer Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, despite continued student protests and a boycott by North Korea.

The 1980s also saw South Korea increasingly shift its economy toward high-tech and computer industries, and improve its relations with the Soviet Union and China. Continuing the transition away from military rule and toward democracy, South Korea elected Kim Young-sam, its first civilian president in more than 30 years, in 1993.

Kim Dae-Jung
Kim Young-sam’s successor, Kim Dae-jung (who took office in 1998) would win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his contributions to democracy in South Korea, as well as his so-called “sunshine” policy of economic and humanitarian aid to North Korea.

That same year, Kim Dae-jung and his northern counterpart, Kim Jong Il, held an historic summit in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea.

Despite that brief period of relatively sunny relations, however, things soon deteriorated between the two countries, largely due to the North’s continued development of nuclear weapons.

The rise to power in 2011 of a volatile new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and his regime’s repeated tests of nuclear missiles only exacerbated the problems.

Park Geun-Hye
Meanwhile, South Korea elected its first female leader, Park Geun-hye (the daughter of Park Chung-hee), in 2013.

But in late 2016, she was implicated in a scandal involving corruption, bribery and influence peddling, and the National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against her that December.

After her impeachment was upheld in March 2017, the center-left candidate Moon Jae-in won a special presidential election in a landslide, pledging to solve the crisis with North Korea using diplomatic means.

South Korea today
Today, South Korea is one of East Asia’s most affluent countries, with an economy ranking just behind Japan and China. With most of the country covered by mountains, a majority of its population is clustered around the urban centers.

The capital of South Korea, Seoul, is home to more than 25 million people, or about 50 percent of the country’s population.

In early 2018, South Korea welcomed athletes from around the world to the Winter Olympic Games.

The month before the games began, North and South Korea agreed to march under the same flag at the Olympics, the latest sign of a partial thaw in relations between the two countries.

Government
South Korea is a democracy, having the system of a presidential representative democratic republic. It is a Unitary State. The president is head of state, as well as a multi-party system. The president rules for 5 years, and there is not a possibility to renew their reign or attempt to run again. The government's Executive and Legislative power is vested in both the President and National Assembly. There are 300 seats in the National Assembly.

Diplomacy
==== South Korea has diplomatic relationships with every UN recognised country except Cuba, North Korea, and Syria. It also doesn't have diplomatic relations with some unrecognised countries, such as Kosovo, Taiwan, Palestine, the Western Sahara, and more. ====

Geography
South Korea borders North Korea. Their land area is 100,032 square kilometres. They have a temperate deciduous forest climate, and both South and North Korea use KST. (Korean Standard Time)

Family

 * Korean Empire - parent
 * Turkey - stepparent or stepsibling (depends on the person)
 * Mongolia - stepparent
 * United States- adoptive parent (depends on the person)
 * Japan - adoptive parent (depends on the person)
 * North Korea - twin

Friends

 * United States - “Thank you for helping me during the Korean War!”
 * Canada - “You helped my people to find a better and safe place to live! You’re also my trading partner!”
 * Malaysia - “Even though you consider yourself neutral. You’re my trading partner and a good friend!”
 * Spain - ”An Ally during the Korean War”
 * France - ”Same goes as Spain”
 * Germany - ”I’m glad you finally came to your sense on changing sides! You’ve helped my people although your other self was not very friendly.”
 * Philippines - “You are an amazing close friend of mine! Without you pushing those communist off my land I wouldn’t know what to do! Words can’t describe how much I’m thankful of your help!”
 * Taiwan - “You did once ally with China until you’ve changed your mind to side with me. Thank you a lot!”
 * European Union, NATO - “You guys are the best!”
 * Mongolia - “They was neutral around the war time but they are my trading partner and a friend!”
 * Turkey - "I always help my relatives even if you’re my stepsibling [or] stepfather I will help you no matter what!"

Neutral

 * Japan - ”I don’t really know anymore. My people like your culture and anime but our presidents have a very weird tension between them”
 * Vietnam - “I supported the South but after the war our relations were warming but they would rather keep it neutral“
 * Angola
 * Mexico
 * Syria - "Thanks for Enjoying my K-pop and K-dramas"
 * Iran

Enemies

 * Japanese Empire
 * North Korea - "I am the one true Korea, give up your silly ways at once!"
 * USSR

Past versions

 * Korean Empire (alternate personality/father - depends on the person)
 * People's Republic of Korea
 * United States Army Military Government In Korea
 * Supreme Council for National Reconstruction

USA
"United States has helped me in the Korean War between me and North brother. I show great respect to them and I think of them as one of my best friends."

Japan
"Japan is alright, we have our ups and downs but we're not at each other's throats. (most of the time) We sometimes hate each other but we get along pretty well. Even though we have some political issues going on, I hate their old self."

North Korea
"How do I explain how our relations are...?

It's very complicated. But I still love him because...he is my brother. I know he misses me too, he is just too shy to say that. But I still don't get it, why would you bomb the Inter-Korean Liaisons office? Why can't you just get along with me, I'm trying my best!"

China
"China? They're okay. I'm annoyed at them cause they didn't help me at all at the Korean war."

Australia
"A friend of mine! They had helped me several times at wars, I am grateful for their help. They can be wild- but they're funny as well."

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