Talk:South Korea

Orthographic Projection

Support for Orthographic Projection

• Vast majority of country articles including the featured articles (i.e. Japan FA, Libya FA, China, Australia FA, Sri Lanka, US, Canada FA, and even North Korea) use orthographic projection.

• The image serves its purpose as a locator map. It clearly shows S. Korea's location in the world and the close up map of the country is shown in the separate image.

Support for Red Colour Locator Map

• Red is preferable colour to Wikipedia standard although it is not followed by most country articles.

• South Korea is enlarged.

100%/99.9% Korean

I don't doubt it... but is this needed? The listing of ethnic composition is usually only given for countries where it's not clear. This place is called "Korea", it's clear that the people living there are Korean. Putting the 100%/99.9% into the infobox seems like ethnic boasting, "we are pure blood". Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 13:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is no recognized ethnic group of Korea, Korea is pretty much 99% Koreans and other 1% are just foreigners such as migrant workers to these with foreign passports. Since other country stat all have this percentage of ethnicity, why not? Please note having homogeneous population doesn't equal to "pure blood", Korea is way big for having just one family so where does this "pure blood" comes from? Danilminjok means one people not pure blood, it's foreigners trying to paint Korea as racist country by wrongly accusing Korea as "pure blood" society.--KSentry(talk) 13:22, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

South Korea, officially [...]

Can we change the the first paragraph of the lead section as below? If not, can I hear some good reasons why, thanks!

South Korea ⁱ/ˌsaʊθ kəˈriə/, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK, Hangul: 대한민국, Hanja: 大韓民國, pronounced [tɛːhanminɡuk̚] ( listen), is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China (Mainland China) to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China (Taiwan) to the south. South Korea lies in the north temperate zone with a predominantly mountainous terrain. Its territory covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of almost 50 million. The capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of 10,421,782.

— Nearly Headless Nick {C} 15:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. Then we change the lead of United Kingdom and France like your suggestion on this page? And there must be a lot more articles to change. If there is not a format for the first sentence of the country articles, I suggest to create one. Oda Mari (talk) 16:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to stick to a standard. Let's discuss this on the village pump. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 23:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course there is a standard. The name used in the page title, or at least a variation of it, should be the subject of the opening sentence, according to WP:LEAD. Who needs IPA to pronounce "South Korea"? Let's not clutter up the opening with trivia. Kauffner (talk) 10:43, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Hanja in the opening

"대한민국" gets 8,270 Korean hits on Google News, "大韓民國" get 42. So Koreans use the hanja name for South Korea about 0.5 percent of the time. Putting these characters in the opening gives the reader a misleading view of Korean usage. Kauffner (talk) 13:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Why limit it to Google News though? That's like saying "democracy" gets eight hits in the American Journal of Orthopedics, whilst "acute inflammation" gets 87,978 hits. As for your line "So Koreans use the hanja name for South Korea about 0.5 percent of the time", I think you should take a look at the xkcd comic on extrapolation. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, regarding Hanja use, it's decline is is only a recent thing. Here is a newspaper article from 1980 about the Gwangju Democratization Movement; nowadays newspapers in South Korea look nothing like that, however 1980 was only 30-so years ago. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

History book about South Korea?

Can anyone point me to a good book (in English) about the general history of South Korea?

I have a history degree but I don't know much about South Korea. So a academic introduction would be good, as long as it reads like a book and not a textbook (I heard bad things about George Buzo's book)

Just to be absolutely clear: something more detailed than Wikipedia's history of South Korea article. Thanks! Ilikeredirects (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

You can look at the list of external sources at History of South Korea#References. If that's not sufficient you can try asking at the Reference Desk; the talk page you are looking at now is only for discussing improvements to this Wikipedia article, not for looking for books. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Origin of Korean Name for Republic of Korea

I seriously question the recent addition here that claims the 韓 in 大韓民國 originates from 하나님 (Korean for God). I'm pretty sure it is actually cognate to the more well known word Khan, and is unrelated to religion.

This claim needs to be supported by some verified references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.51.185.47 (talk) 01:26, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Seoul Population

I don't really get it, how is the population of Seoul supposed to be 49,708,483?? 79.44.180.185 (talk) 15:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Well spotted. That must be wrong -- it looks as if somebody has confused the population of Seoul with the population of the whole country. What is quite disturbing is that I see from the edit history that the obviously incorrect figure has been there for well over a year at least. I will try to find the correct figure. -- Alarics (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done. I have copied (what I trust is) the correct figure in from List of cities in South Korea by population. Also updated the same figure where it occurs in the lead and in one other place in the article. Ignore my above comment about the time it took to spot this -- I didn't realise the table was in a separate template. In fact the change was made only yesterday -- looks like a piece of drive-by vandalism by an IP. -- Alarics (talk) 16:42, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

error

The first sentence of the fifth paragraph looks to be an error, it states, "South Korea is not awesome at all." (````). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.46.136 (talk) 02:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It was vandalism, looks like it has since been removed. Thanks for pointing it out. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:48, 24 February 2012 (UTC)