South Korea

State · Capital: Seoul

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia constituting the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, with a population of about 52 million, half of whom live in the Seoul metropolitan area. After Korea was divided into Soviet and U.S. occupation zones in 1945, the southern zone became the Republic of Korea in August 1948, while the northern zone became the Democratic People's Republic of Korea the following month. A North Korean invasion in 1950 triggered the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with an armistice; with no peace treaty, the Korean conflict is still ongoing. South Korea endured a series of dictatorships but experienced a soaring economy and one of the fastest rises in average GDP per capita, emerging as one of the Four Asian Tigers.