The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea; it began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and ceased upon an armistice on 27 July 1953. North Korea was supported by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United Nations Command (UNC) led by the United States (US).
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone; though it also claims the land border with China and Russia. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. South Korea claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. It has a population of 51.96 million, of which half live in the Seoul Capital Area, the ninth most populous metropolitan area in the world. Other major cities include Busan, Daegu, and Incheon.
South Korea maintains diplomatic relations with 191 countries. The country has also been a member of the United Nations since 1991, when it became a member state at the same time as North Korea. South Korea has also hosted major international events such as the 1988 Summer Olympics and 2002 World Cup Football Tournament and the 2011 IAAF World Championships Daegu South Korea. Furthermore, South Korea had hosted the 2018 Winter Olympics which took place in Pyeongchang from 9 to 25 February.
The Asian Games, also known as Asiad, is a continental multi-sport event held every fourth year among athletes from all over Asia. The Games were regulated by the Asian Games Federation (AGF) from the first Games in New Delhi, India in 1951, until the 1978 Games. Since the 1982 Games, they have been organized by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), after the breakup of the Asian Games Federation. The Games are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and are described as the second largest multi-sport event after the Olympic Games.
Gimpo International Airport, formerly rendered in English as Kimpo International Airport, is located in the far western end of Seoul, some 15 km (9 mi) west of the Central District of Seoul. Gimpo was the main international airport for Seoul and South Korea before being replaced by Incheon International Airport in 2001. It now functions as Seoul's secondary airport. In 2015, over 23 million passengers used the airport, making it the third-largest airport in Korea, as it has been surpassed by Jeju International Airport.
The Korean conflict is an ongoing conflict based on the division of Korea between North Korea and South Korea, both of which claim to be the sole legitimate government of all of Korea. During the Cold War, North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union, China, and other allies, while South Korea was backed by the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western allies.
Gangwon State, is a Special Self-Governing Province of South Korea. It is known as the largest and least densely populated subdivision of South Korea. Gangwon is one of the three provinces in South Korea with special self-governing status, the others being Jeju Province and Jeonbuk State. Gangwon is bordered on the east by the East Sea, it borders Gyeonggi Province to the west, North Gyeongsang Province and North Chungcheong Province to the south, and the Military Demarcation Line to the north, separating it from North Korea. In the 1945 division of Korea, the historical Gangwon Province was divided in half, and remains so to this day. The northern portion is administered by the DPRK and is called Kangwŏn Province
Korean Air Flight 858 was a scheduled international passenger flight between Baghdad, Iraq, and Seoul, South Korea. On 29 November 1987, the aircraft flying that route exploded in mid-air upon the detonation of a bomb planted inside an overhead storage bin in the airplane's passenger cabin by two North Korean agents.
The 1986 Asian Games, officially known as the 10th Asian Games and the X Asiad and commonly known as Seoul 1986 were held from 20 September to 5 October 1986, in Seoul, South Korea. The venues and facilities of the 10th Asiad were the same venues and facilities that would be used in the 1988 Summer Olympics, as it was considered a test event.
Kim Hyon-hui, also known as Okhwa, is a former North Korean agent, responsible for the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing in 1987, which killed 115 people. She was arrested in Bahrain following the bombing and extradited to South Korea. There she was sentenced to death but later pardoned.
Diplomatic relations between South Korea and the United States commenced in 1949. The United States helped establish the modern state of South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, and fought on its UN-sponsored side in the Korean War (1950–1953). During the subsequent decades, South Korea experienced tremendous economic, political and military growth.
Formerly a single nation that was annexed by Japan in 1910, the Korean Peninsula has been divided into North Korea and South Korea since the end of World War II on 2 September 1945. The two governments were founded in the two regions in 1948, leading to the consolidation of division. The two countries engaged in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 which ended in an armistice agreement but without a peace treaty. North Korea is a one-party state run by the Kim family. South Korea was formerly governed by a succession of military dictatorships, save for a brief one-year democratic period from 1960 to 1961, until thorough democratization in 1987, after which direct elections were held. Both nations claim the entire Korean Peninsula and outlying islands. Both nations joined the United Nations in 1991 and are recognized by most member states. Since the 1970s, both nations have held informal diplomatic dialogues in order to ease military tensions.
Inter-Korean summits are meetings between the leaders of North and South Korea. To date, there have been five such meetings so far, three of them being in Pyongyang, with another two in Panmunjom. The importance of these summits lies in the lack of formal communication between North and South Korea, which makes discussing political and economic issues difficult. The summits' agendas have included topics such as the ending of the 1950-53 war, the massive deployment of troops at the DMZ, the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea, and human rights issues.
Anti-American sentiment in Korea began with the earliest contact between the two nations and continued after the division of Korea and Korean War. Despite this, as of 2011, 74% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the U.S., making it one of the most pro-American countries in the world.
Seoul, officially Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Capital Area, encompassing Gyeonggi province and Incheon metropolitan city, emerged as the world's fourth largest metropolitan economy in 2014, trailing only Tokyo, New York City, and Los Angeles, hosting more than half of South Korea's population. Although Seoul's population peaked at slightly over 10 million, it has gradually decreased since 2014, standing at approximately 9.97 million residents as of 2020. Seoul is the seat of the South Korean government.
The July 2009 cyberattacks were a series of coordinated cyberattacks against major government, news media, and financial websites in South Korea and the United States. The attacks involved the activation of a botnet—a large number of hijacked computers—that maliciously accessed targeted websites with the intention of causing their servers to overload due to the influx of traffic, known as a DDoS attack. Most of the hijacked computers were located in South Korea. The estimated number of the hijacked computers varies widely; around 20,000 according to the South Korean National Intelligence Service, around 50,000 according to Symantec's Security Technology Response group, and more than 166,000 according to a Vietnamese computer security researcher who analyzed the log files of the two servers the attackers controlled. An investigation revealed that at least 39 websites were targets in the attacks based on files stored on compromised systems.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Seoul, South Korea.
In 2013, there were two major sets of cyberattacks on South Korean targets attributed to elements within North Korea.
The 2017–2018 North Korea crisis was a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States throughout 2017. The crisis began early in 2017 when North Korea conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests that demonstrated the country's ability to launch ballistic missiles beyond its immediate region, suggesting their nuclear weapons capability was developing at a faster rate than had been assessed by U.S. intelligence. Both countries started exchanging increasingly heated rhetoric, including nuclear threats and personal attacks between the two leaders, which, compounded by a joint U.S.–South Korea military exercise undertaken in August and North Korea's sixth nuclear test in September, raised international tensions in the region and beyond and stoked fears about a possible nuclear conflict between the two nations. In addition, North Korea also threatened Australia twice with nuclear strikes throughout the year for their allegiance with the United States. International relations lecturer and former government strategist Van Jackson said in the book On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War that it was the closest the world had come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
