PEOPLE
The Korean Peninsula was first populated by peoples of a Tungusic branch of the Ural-Altaic language family, who migrated from the northwestern regions of Asia. Some of these peoples also populated parts of northeast China (Manchuria); Koreans and Manchurians still show physical similarities. Koreans are racially and linguistically homogeneous. Although there are no indigenous minorities in North Korea, there is a small Chinese community (about 50,000) and some 1,800 Japanese wives who accompanied the roughly 93,000 Koreans returning to the North from Japan between 1959 and 1962. Although dialects exist, the Korean spoken throughout the peninsula is mutually comprehensible. In North Korea, the Korean alphabet (hangul) is used exclusively.
Nationality: Noun and adjective--Korean(s).
Population (2006): 23.1 million.
Annual growth rate: About +0.98%.
Ethnic groups: Korean; small ethnic Chinese and Japanese populations.
Religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, Shamanism, Chongdogyo, Christian; autonomous religious activities have been virtually nonexistent since 1945.
Language: Korean.
Education: Years compulsory--11. Attendance--3 million (primary, 1.5 million; secondary, 1.2 million; tertiary, 0.3 million). Literacy--99%.
Health (1998): Medical treatment is free; one doctor for every 700 inhabitants; one hospital bed for every 350; there are severe shortages of medicines and medical equipment. Infant mortality rate--25/1,000. Life expectancy--males 68 yrs., females 74 yrs (2004 est.).
Beginning in the mid-1920s,
the Japanese colonial administration concentrated its industrial
development efforts in the comparatively underpopulated and resource-rich
north, resulting in a considerable movement of people northward
from the agrarian southern provinces of the Korean Peninsula.
This trend reversed after the end of World War II, when more than
two million Koreans moved from the north to the south following
the division of the peninsula into Soviet and American military
zones of administration. This southward exodus continued after
the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) in 1948 and during the Korean War (1950-53). Korea's population
is now divided between the 44.5 million people in the south and
the 21.8 million the north.
