One peninsula, two states, and names that still disagree
Korea is the East Asian peninsula plus Jeju and lesser islands, politically split near the 38th parallel since 1945 into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea. English “Korea” traces to Goryeo, while North and South still prefer Joseon or Hanguk.
The Korean Academy has claimed hominid fossils in lava at a stone-city site dating to about 100,000 BCE, and some analyses push them back as far as 300,000 BCE. Well-preserved pottery reaches back to around 10,000 BCE, and the Neolithic starts near 6000 BCE. Human presence on the peninsula reaches back tens of millennia; tradition dates Gojoseon’s founding to 2333 BCE before Han conquest in 108 BCE planted commanderies.
Proto-Korean speech seems to have come from southern Siberia or Manchuria, perhaps the Liao or Amur basins, reaching the south of the peninsula around 300 BCE. That arrival probably pushed Japonic-speaking Yayoi people across the sea to Japan, where they mixed with or displaced the Jōmon. In the south, the Samhan confederacies of Mahan, Jinhan and Byeonhan held 78 small states, 54 of them in Mahan alone, and grew into Baekje, Silla and Gaya. Goguryeo meanwhile ruled the north, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula, absorbing Buyeo, Okjeo and Dongye.
The Three Kingdoms—Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla—then shaped classic Korean states, later unified under later dynasties until Japanese rule brought industry, exploitation, and the 1919 March First Movement. In 1945 the Soviet Union and the United States split the peninsula into occupation zones along the 38th parallel, meant as a temporary step. Separate states followed in 1948, and the war that began in 1950 ended in 1953 in stalemate without a peace treaty, leaving a demilitarised zone close to the original line.
South Korea styles the whole as Hanguk, echoing Samhan; North Korea, China, Japan, and Vietnam lean on Joseon/Chosŏn, “Morning Calm.” English once wrote Corea, attested by 1614, from Goryeo via Marco Polo’s Cauli. South Korea today ranks as a developed regional power with the fourteenth-largest economy by purchasing-power GDP, while North Korea pursues a military-first policy and counts about 7.8 million active, reserve and paramilitary personnel.
Source: Korea
