South Korea

Country page · KR · Aletheia

This page was generated on 20 September 2026 at 12:27 UTC. The bundled facts on it were retrieved between 13 July 2026 and 8 August 2026. Aletheia's source record for emergency numbers records no retrieval date, so it is not covered by that range.

This page is being built. Everything below is a block that is in place and empty. Each one says which kind of empty it is, because those are different facts: nobody has looked yet is not the same claim as we looked and there was nothing, and this page will never let one stand in for the other.

Country outlines on Aletheia come from Natural Earth's 1:10-million public-domain boundary set, made by volunteer cartographers and supported by NACIS. Where a border is disputed, the line drawn is one cartographic convention among the competing claims — not a settled fact, and not Aletheia taking a side. Disputes we can source are listed rather than hidden inside the outline.

Locator map of South Korea. South Korea is filled; surrounding countries are drawn in a dimmer tone and nothing is hidden behind them. 4 contested areas are marked with hatching: Dokdo (marked at minimum size, not to scale), Korean Demilitarized Zone (north), Korean Demilitarized Zone (south), Korean islands under UN jurisdiction (marked at minimum size, not to scale). 22 parts of it are too small to draw at this scale and are not shown. View spans 124.0°E to 132.5°E and 32.7°N to 39.1°N. Boundaries: Natural Earth (public domain), 1:10m.Dokdo — status contested; see the list below.Korean Demilitarized Zone (north) — status contested; see the list below.Korean Demilitarized Zone (south) — status contested; see the list below.Korean islands under UN jurisdiction — status contested; see the list below.

South Korea is filled. The 2 other countries reaching this view are drawn in a dimmer tone — dimmed, not hidden. Unpainted ground is where no boundary in this dataset falls: open water, or land none of them claims.

The 4 hatched areas are contested, and Aletheia takes no position on any of them. The hatching marks where the dispute lies — including where it falls inside the outline — and it is the same set the list below names. 2 of them are smaller than this map can draw and are marked with a fixed-size diamond: the diamond is their position, not their size or shape.

22 parts of South Korea in this source are smaller than a pixel at this scale and are not drawn. Nothing larger than that is missing, and they have not been enlarged to make them visible.

Boundaries: Natural Earth (public domain), 1:10m. Disputed areas: Natural Earth (public domain). Equirectangular projection, standard parallel 35.9°N — distances and areas away from that parallel are stretched. View: 124.0°E–132.5°E, 32.7°N–39.1°N.

Disputed areas involving South Korea

4 areas whose status is contested. Aletheia takes no position on any of them. Each is described in the source’s own words.

Source: Natural Earth’s disputed-areas layer (public domain). The list is not exhaustive, and inclusion or omission is not a judgment about any claim’s merit. What has happened in these places is not described here — that needs a source Aletheia has not yet been able to read.

  1. News sources

    3 sources from South Koreain Aletheia’s registry. Coverage here is covered.

    • Yonhap News Agency (English)
    • The Korea Herald
    • The Korea Times

    sources not yet assessed

  2. Official alerts

    no source connectedNo official alerting source is connected for this country yet. Its own authorities may well publish warnings — Aletheia simply does not carry them.

  3. National legislature

    National Assembly ↗

    Wikidata P856 · link checked and reachable

  4. Local time

    One time zone.

    The current time needs JavaScript, so it is not shown here rather than shown wrong.

  5. Conditions at the capital

    Right now in Seoul

    22°C / 71°FClearwind 5 km/h / 3 mph

    Checked 12 minutes ago

    Conditions at the capital, not across the country.

    Weather from Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0)

    Seoul, 2026-09-20Sunrise 6:17 AM · sunset 6:32 PM12h 15m of daylightWaxing gibbous, 65% lit

  6. At a glance

    ISO code
    KORuncited
    Driving side
    rightuncited
    Mains voltage
    220 Vcited
    Capital
    Seouluncited
    Official languages
    Korean, Korean Sign Languagecited
    Plug types
    Type C (Europlug), Type F (Schuko)cited · letters are the IEC classification
    Official website
    gov.kr ↗We could not reach this from our checker. Many government sites refuse automated requests, so this is not a report that the site is down.Recorded by us, not by the source: Ministry of the Interior and Safety — in the government's own namespace, recorded 2026-08-07. We have not tested whether it loads.cited
    Country-branding site
    korea.net ↗Not a government portal.

  7. Population and economy

    Population

    Population of South Korea: the UN's 2025 estimate is 51,684,564 people. The page shows that figure carried forward at about 7.6 fewer an hour. It is a projection, not a count, and the figure shown changes as time passes.

    Not a count. This is the UN's 2025 estimate carried forward at the rate implied by the two most recent published years — arithmetic, not a measurement. Nobody counts a country continuously, and the true figure right now is unknown.

    Where this number comes from
    Base figure
    51,684,564 people
    For the year
    2025 — a mid-year estimate, so it describes 1 July 2025
    Compared with
    51,751,065 people in 2024
    Rate applied
    about 7.6 fewer an hour (-66,545 a year)
    How that rate was found
    The difference between the 2024 and 2025 estimates, divided by the time between them. It is our arithmetic on two published figures — the source does not publish this rate.
    Carried forward
    0 days beyond the base figure's date
    Source
    UN World Population Prospects and national statistical offices, compiled by the World Bank · source updated 2026-07-13
    The source's own definition
    The values shown are midyear estimates.

    THIS NUMBER IS NOT A MEASUREMENT, AND ITS MOVEMENT IS NOT NEWS. No country counts its population continuously. A census is periodic, and every figure between censuses — including the estimate this starts from — is a projection. What you are watching is that projection's trend applied to the clock on your phone. It moves because time passes, not because anyone was born or died. Treat the digits beyond the first few as arithmetic rather than knowledge: the trend is real, the precision is not.

    Population
    51,684,5642025
    GDP
    1,872,374,961,5532025
    GDP per capita
    36,2272025
    Life expectancy at birth
    83.6 years2024
    Exports
    45.8%2025
    Imports
    40.6%2025

    Compiled by the World Bank from: World Population Prospects, United Nations (UN), uri: https://population.un.org/wpp/, publisher: UN Population Division · source updated 2026-07-13 · each figure is dated because the most recent value was chosen by us, not by the source

  8. In this country's own words

    홍익인간(弘益人間): 널리 인간을 이롭게 하라
    the state's official mottovia Wikidata (CC0)

    Also recorded in Azerbaijani, English and Welsh.

    Founded
    1948
    National anthem
    Aegukga

    Everything in this section is quoted, with its source. Aletheia does not write about a country's history, culture or religion in its own words — where there is nothing to quote, there is no section.

  9. World Heritage Sites

    17 World Heritage Sitesshow all
    1. Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple · inscribed 1995
    2. Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, the Depositories for the Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks · inscribed 1995
    3. Jongmyo · inscribed 1995
    4. Changdeokgung · inscribed 1997
    5. Hwaseong Fortress · inscribed 1997
    6. Gyeongju Historic Areas · inscribed 2000
    7. Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites · inscribed 2000
    8. Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes · inscribed 2007
    9. Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty · inscribed 2009
    10. Historic Villages of Korea: Hahoe and Yangdong · inscribed 2010
    11. Namhansanseong · inscribed 2014
    12. Baekje Historic Areas · inscribed 2015
    13. Sansa, Buddhist Mountain Monasteries in Korea · inscribed 2018
    14. Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies · inscribed 2019
    15. Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats · inscribed 2021
    16. Gaya Tumuli · inscribed 2023
    17. Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream · inscribed 2025

    Register from Wikidata (CC0) · in inscription order · links go to UNESCO

  10. Emergency numbers

    • 112listed as: police
    • 113listed as: counterintelligence
    • 119listed as: fire department
    • 119listed as: emergency medical services

    Shown in numerical order, which is not an order of priority.

    Listed by the source, mostly from ITU-T E.129. We have not dialled these numbers, and where a service is named it is the source's description rather than ours.

  11. Explore this country

  12. Regions

    First-level regions as GeoNames lists them, shown alphabetically · each page computes daylight at the region’s own coordinates

  13. Currency

    KRW

News coverage here is counted from Aletheia’s bundled source registry plus the sources the Host had admitted as of 2026-09-14. A source admitted since that date has not reached this page yet, so this is a floor rather than a total.

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