The Republic of Korea and Japan

The Republic of Korea (South Korea) lies in East Asia in the south of the Korean peninsula. Its area is about 100 thousand km², population about 51–52 million and capital Seoul. It borders the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and is washed by the Sea of Japan in the east, the Yellow Sea in the west and the Korea Strait in the south; about 3,000 islands belong to it, the biggest being Jeju. It is a presidential republic and a unitary state. The relief is mostly medium-height mountains, so land fit for farming is scarce. Minerals (coal, tungsten, iron and others) are few, and raw materials are mainly imported. The climate is temperate and monsoonal: summers hot and humid, winters cold and dry. Natural increase is very low, with one of the lowest birth rates in the world today, so the population is ageing and no longer growing. Urbanisation is over 80 %, and much of the population lives in and around Seoul and in Busan, Daegu and Incheon. The population is almost uniformly Korean. Density is about 500 people/km², very high on the flat western and southern coasts. Since the 1960s–80s the state industrialised quickly and became a newly industrialised country. Main branches: car making, shipbuilding, electronics (semiconductors), metallurgy and petrochemicals; big transnational corporations such as Samsung and Hyundai are based there. In farming, rice, vegetables and fruit matter. It is one of the world’s big exporters and an important trade and investment partner of Uzbekistan.