The Korea Strait is a sea passage in East Asia between Korea and Japan, connecting the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The strait is split by the Tsushima Island into the Western Channel and the Tsushima Strait or Eastern Channel. It is economically important, as many shipping lanes pass through the strait, and both Japan and Korea permit free passage through it. In ancient times, both Buddhism and Mongol invaders passed over the strait to reach Japan. More recently, it was the site of the Battle of Korea Strait in the Korean War. A tunnel running underneath the strait connecting Japan and Korea, the Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel, has been proposed to connect the two countries.
34°35′58″N129°47′48″E / 34.59944°N 129.79667°E
Korea Strait | |
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Japanese name | |
Kanji | 対馬海峡/朝鮮海峡 |
Hiragana | つしまかいきょう/ちょうせんかいきょう |
Revised Hepburn | Tsushima Kaikyō/Chōsen kaikyō |
South Korean name | |
Hangul | 대한해협 |
Hanja | 大韓海峽 |
Revised Romanization | Daehan Haehyeop |
North Korean name | |
Chosŏn'gŭl | 조선해협 |
Hancha | 朝鮮海峽 |
McCune–Reischauer | Chosŏn Haehyŏp |
To the north,the Korea Strait is bounded by the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula. And to the south,it by the southwestern Japanese islands of Kyūshū and Honshū. It is about 200 km (120 mi) wide and averages about 90 to 100 meters (300 ft) deep.
Tsushima Island divides the Korea Strait into the western channel and the Tsushima Strait. The western channel is deeper (up to 227 meters) and narrower than the Tsushima Strait.
A branch of the Kuroshio Current passes through the strait. Its warm branch is sometimes called the Tsushima Current. Originating along the Japanese islands this current passes through the Sea of Japan then divides along either shore of Sakhalin Island,eventually flowing into the northern Pacific Ocean via the strait north of Hokkaidō and into the Sea of Okhotsk north of Sakhalin Island near Vladivostok. The water-mass characteristics vary widely because of the low-salinity waters of the southeast coasts of Korea and China.
Numerous international shipping lanes pass through the strait,including those carrying much of the traffic bound for the ports of southern South Korea. Both South Korea and Japan have restricted their territorial claims in the strait to 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from shore,so as to permit free passage through it. [1] [2]
Passenger ferries travel numerous routes across the strait. Commercial ferries run from South Korean Busan,Geoje to Japanese ports including Fukuoka,Tsushima,Shimonoseki,and Hiroshima. Ferries also connect Tsushima Island with Fukuoka,and South Korea's Jeju Island with the Korean mainland. Ferries connecting Busan and Japanese cities with ports in China also traverse the strait.
Japan's territorial waters extend to three nautical miles (5.6 km) into the strait instead of the usual twelve,reportedly to allow nuclear-armed United States Navy warships and submarines to transit the strait without violating Japan's prohibition against nuclear weapons in its territory. [3]
Korean Peninsula - Kyushu | Korean Peninsula - Tsushima Island | Tsushima Island - Kyushu | |
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International name (commonly used in English) | Korea Strait | Western Channel | Eastern Channel |
South Korean name | 대한해협/ 大韓海峽 Daehan Haehyeop "Korea Strait" | 서수로/ 東水路 Seo-suro "Western Channel" | 동수로/ 東水路 Dong-suro "Eastern Channel" |
North Korean name | 조선해협/ 朝鮮海峽 Chosŏn Haehyŏp "Korea Strait" | (None) | |
Japanese name | 対馬海峡 Tsushima Kaikyō "Tsushima Strait" | 朝鮮海峡or 西水道 Chōsen Kaikyō or Nishi-suidō "Korea Strait" or "Western Channel" | 対馬海峡or 東水道 Tsushima Kaikyō or Higashi-suidō "Tsushima Strait" or "Eastern Channel" |
During the Pleistocene glacial cycles, the Korea Strait and the Bering Straits, and the Yellow Sea were often narrowed and the Japanese islands may at times have been connected to the Eurasian Continent through the Korean Peninsula or Sakhalin. At times, the Sea of Japan was said to be a frozen inner lake due to the lack of warm Tsushima Current and various plants and large animals, such as the Palaeoloxodon naumanni are believed to have spread into Japan. [4]
Historically, these narrows served as a highway for high risk voyages. The shortest distance between Busan, South Korea, and Tsushima Island is about 50 km, as is the shortest distance from Tsushima to Iki Island, Japan.
In the 6th century, Buddhism (Mahāyāna Buddhism) was transmitted by Baekje people to the easternmost Japan of the Emperor Kinmei's era over this strait (See also: East Asian Buddhism and Buddhism in Japan).
A joint Mongol-Korea fleet crossed this strait and attempted to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281. The force severely ravaged the Tsushima Island on the way to Japan but failed to defeat Japan.
After the Mongolian invasion ravaged Tsushima, it became a base of the Wokou (Japanese pirates). The Korean Joseon Dynasty sent a fleet to Tsushima in 1419 for the suppression of Wokou activity. Korea subsequently agreed to grant the Japanese limited trading privileges.
The Battle of Tsushima, fought between the Japanese and Russian navies on May 27 and May 28, 1905, took place in the Tsushima Strait part of the Korea Strait, east of the north part of Tsushima and due north of Iki Island. The Russian fleet was destroyed by the Japanese.
The Battle of Korea Strait was a naval battle fought on the first day of the Korean War, 25–26 June 1950, between the navies of South Korea and North Korea. A North Korean troop transport carrying hundreds of soldiers attempted to land its cargo near Busan but was encountered by a South Korean patrol ship and sunk. It was one of the first surface actions of the war and resulted in an important South Korean victory. [5] [6]
The possibility of a Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel or bridge, similar to the Channel Tunnel running under the English Channel between France and the United Kingdom, has been discussed for decades.
The Bosporus or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul, Turkey. The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental boundaries between Asia and Europe. It also divides Turkey by separating Asia minor from Thrace. It is the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation.
Strait of Tartary or Gulf of Tartary is a strait in the Pacific Ocean dividing the Russian island of Sakhalin from mainland Asia, connecting the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with the Sea of Japan on the south. It is 632 km (393 mi) long, 7–23 km (4.3–14.3 mi) wide, and only 4 m (13 ft) deep at its shallowest point.
The Sea of Japan
is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean. This isolation also affects faunal diversity and salinity, both of which are lower than in the open ocean. The sea has no large islands, bays or capes. Its water balance is mostly determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas and the Pacific Ocean. Few rivers discharge into the sea and their total contribution to the water exchange is within 1%.Busan, officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.3 million inhabitants as of 2024. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, with its port being South Korea's busiest and the sixth-busiest in the world. The surrounding "Southeastern Maritime Industrial Region" is South Korea's largest industrial area. The large volumes of port traffic and urban population in excess of 1 million make Busan a Large-Port metropolis using the Southampton System of Port-City classification. As of 2019, Busan Port is the primary port in Korea and the world's sixth-largest container port.
The Seikan Tunnel is a 53.85 km (33.46 mi) dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3 km (14.5 mi) portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern island of Hokkaido. The track level is about 100 m (330 ft) below the seabed and 240 m (790 ft) below sea level. The tunnel is part of the standard-gauge Hokkaido Shinkansen and the narrow-gauge Kaikyō Line of the Hokkaido Railway Company 's Tsugaru-Kaikyō Line. The name Seikan comes from combining the on'yomi readings of the first characters of Aomori (青森), the nearest major city on the Honshu side of the strait, and Hakodate (函館), the nearest major city on the Hokkaido side.
Tsushima is an island city grouped in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It is the only city of Tsushima Subprefecture and it encompasses all of Tsushima Island, which lies in the Tsushima Strait north of Nagasaki on the western side of Kyushu, the southernmost mainland island of Japan. As of March 2017, the city has an estimated population of 31,550 and a population density of 45 persons per km2. Its total area is 708.61 km2, 17.3% of the area of Nagasaki Prefecture.
Tsushima Strait or Eastern Channel is a channel of the Korea Strait, which lies between Korea and Japan, connecting the Sea of Japan, the Yellow Sea, and the East China Sea.
Wokou, which translates to "Japanese pirates", were pirates who raided the coastlines of China and Korea from the 13th century to the 17th century. The wokou were made of various ethnicities of East Asian ancestry, which varied over time and raided the mainland from islands in the Sea of Japan and East China Sea. Wokou activity in Korea declined after the Treaty of Gyehae in 1443 but continued in Ming China and peaked during the Jiajing wokou raids in the mid-16th century. Chinese reprisals and strong clamp-downs on pirates by Japanese authorities saw the wokou disappear by the 17th century.
The Kanmon Straits or the Straits of Shimonoseki is the stretch of water separating Honshu and Kyushu, two of Japan's four main islands. On the Honshu side of the strait is Shimonoseki and on the Kyushu side is Kitakyushu, whose former city and present ward, Moji, gave the strait its "mon". The straits silt up at the rate of about 15 centimetres per annum, and dredging has made it possible to build the Kitakyushu Airport at low cost.
Major military efforts were taken by Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty in 1274 and 1281 to conquer the Japanese archipelago after the submission of the Korean kingdom of Goryeo to vassaldom. Ultimately a failure, the invasion attempts are of macro-historical importance because they set a limit on Mongol expansion and rank as nation-defining events in the history of Japan. The invasions are referred to in many works of fiction and are the earliest events for which the word kamikaze is widely used, originating in reference to the two typhoons faced by the Yuan fleets.
Tsushima Island is an island of the Japanese archipelago situated in-between the Tsushima Strait and Korea Strait, approximately halfway between Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula. The main island of Tsushima, once a single island, was divided into two in 1671 by the Ōfunakoshiseto canal and into three in 1900 by the Manzekiseto canal. These canals were driven through isthmuses in the center of the island, forming "North Tsushima Island" (Kamino-shima) and "South Tsushima Island" (Shimono-shima). Tsushima also incorporates over 100 smaller islands, many tiny. The name Tsushima generally refers to all the islands of the Tsushima archipelago collectively. Administratively, Tsushima Island is in Nagasaki Prefecture.
Iki Island, or the Iki Archipelago, is an archipelago in the Tsushima Strait, which is administered as the city of Iki in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The islands have a total area of 138.46 square kilometres (53.46 sq mi) with a total population of 28,008. Only four (4) of the twenty-three (23) named islands are permanently inhabited. Together with the neighboring islands of Tsushima, they are collectively within the borders of the Iki–Tsushima Quasi-National Park.
The Ōei Invasion, also known as the Gihae Expedition, was a 1419 Joseon invasion of Tsushima Island, which is located in the middle of the Tsushima Strait between the Korean Peninsula and Kyushu.
Kamijima (上島) is the double-mountained northern end of Tsushima Island, which lies in the Korea Strait between the East China Sea to the south and the Sea of Japan to the north, and Korea to the west and mainland Japan to the east. The famous naval Battle of Tsushima was fought east and northeast of Kamino-shima in the Tsushima Strait. The northwest tip of Kamino-shima lies about 50km from Busan, South Korea.
An underwater tunnel is a tunnel which is partly or wholly constructed under the sea or a river. They are often used where building a bridge or operating a ferry link is unviable, or to provide competition or relief for existing bridges or ferry links. While short tunnels are often road tunnels which may admit motorized traffic, unmotorized traffic or both, concerns with ventilation lead to the longest tunnels being electrified rail tunnels.
A fixed link or fixed crossing is a permanent, unbroken road or rail connection across water that uses some combination of bridges, tunnels, and causeways and does not involve intermittent connections such as drawbridges or ferries. A bridge–tunnel combination is commonly used for major fixed links.
The Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel, or Korea–Japan Undersea Tunnel, is a proposed tunnel project to connect Japan with South Korea via an undersea tunnel crossing the Korea Strait that would use the strait islands of Iki and Tsushima, a straight-line distance of approximately 128 kilometers (80 mi) at its shortest.
Cross-sea traffic ways are vehicle or railroad traffic ways across the sea. Such traffic ways could include bridges or tunnels.
The Battle of Korsakov, a naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War, was fought on 20 August 1904 off the southern coast of Sakhalin island. The battle foiled an attempt by the Imperial Russian Navy protected cruiser Novik at escaping Port Arthur to join the Russian cruiser squadron at Vladivostok, Russia, after the Russian Pacific Squadron was scattered in the Battle of the Yellow Sea.