South Korea is a country in the East of Asia. It is located on the Korean Peninsula, which was inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period. The Republic of Korea shares his only border with North Korea.
Hangul is the Korean alphabet and is used by both Koreas. The modern Hangul is composed of a total of 24 letters with 14 consonant letters and 10 vowel letters. The official name of South Korea is 대한민국.
The Korean cuisine is based on vegetables, meats and rice. Compared to other Asian countries, such as Japan, Korean food is rather spicy. If a dish is too red, you probably won’t make it too easily if you don’t like spicy food.
A side dish that almost every meal must have is kimchi. Kimichi is a side dish of fermented vegetables such as napa cabbage and Korean radish, seasoned with spices such as gochugaru (chili powder), garlic and ginger. The average Korean eats around 36 kilos of kimchi a year.
The name of a Korean consist of a family name followed by a given name. The number of different family names in Korea is rather low. In 2015 there were only 286 Korean family names in use.
The most common name is Kim (Hangul: 김), followed by Lee (이) and Park (박). Around 22 million people in South Korea have one of this family names.
