South Korea

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula.Highly urbanized at 92%, South Koreans lead a distinctive urban lifestyle, as half of them live in high-rises concentrated in the Seoul Capital Area with 25 million residents and the world's sixth leading global city with the fourth largest economy and seventh most sustainable city in the world.The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC. The name Korea is derived from one of them, Goguryeo, also known as Koryŏ, which was a powerful empire and one of the great powers in East Asia, ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, Northeast China, and parts of Russia and Inner Mongolia under Gwanggaeto the Great. Since their unification into Later Silla and Balhae in the 7th century, Korea enjoyed over a millennium of relative tranquility under long lasting dynasties, with innovations like Hangul, the unique alphabet created by Sejong the Great in 1446, enabling anyone to easily learn to read and write. Its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, but a North Korean invasion led to the Korean War (1950–1953). Peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the world's 10th largest defence budget.