South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a presidential republic in East Asia, occupying the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
History
The Republic of Korea was formed from the southern territories of the Korean Peninsula which were occupied by the United States of America at the end of World War II. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was formed from the areas in the north of Korea which were conversely occupied by the Soviet Union. Consequently, while South Korea adopted a pro-American, capitalist ethos, North Korea became organized as a communist dictatorship. By 1950, an undeclared war had broken out between the two states, which quickly became a proxy war between the United States and her allies in the Western bloc of the emerging Cold War, on one side, and the Soviet Union and China, on the other. In 1953, the two Korean states arrived at an armistice, which holds to the present day, and the border between the two countries was demarcated by an uninhabited region known as the Demilitarized Zone. From the administration of the first President of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, in 1948, South Korea had been ruled by an anti-communist military dictatorship, until pro-democracy protests in 1987 led to the transition to liberal constitutional government. South Korea still remains diplomatically and militarily aligned with the United States, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and remains on bitter terms with North Korea and Japan.
Points of Interest
See Also
- Appearances of South Korea
- Location Gallery: South Korea