CORE'A, a peninsular kingdom of eastern Asia, tributary to China; lat. 34° 40' to 42° 30' n., and long. 125° to 129' e., with an area estimated at 79,414 sq. miles. It is bounded c. by the sea of Japan; s. by the Yellow sea; w. by the Yellow sea and gulf of Pechili; and n. by the rivers Yalu and Tu-m8n, which separate C. from Chinese and Russian Mantehuria respectively. These rivers take their rise from the eastern and western slopes of the vast desert mountain-tract of Ch'ang Pelt Shan. Other considerable rivers are the Ping Jang, discharging into the Yellow sea in lat. 39°; and the Han, also flow ing w., near the mouth of which is the capital, Seoul or Saul (Chinese, Wang King). All accounts represent the country as mountainous throughout. densely wooded in some districts, with valleys moderately fertile. The climate, which in the n. is glacial, is elsewhere like that of Japan. There is ice and snow everywhere in winter. The rain fall of C. is excessive.
There is good reason to connect the people with the Tungusic stock that has peopled the whole of northern Asia. The features of the Coreans are more pronouncedly Mon golian than those of the Japanese, whom they most resemble. The language, differing widely from both Chinese and Japanese, resembles the latter in its polysyllabic form and alphabet of 27 letters, and has affinity with the existing Mongolian tongue. The native alphabet and writing is almost disused; the Chinese character is everywhere known. The religion of C., like its other official institutions, is based on that of China; the Chinese state gods are everywhere worshiped; Buddhism and Taoism have their votaries; and the literati profess the Confucian ethics. The monarchy is a despotism limited by the existence of privileged ranks and hereditary nobles. The officials are selected. The life of the Coreans is very primitive; the chief articles of food are infe rior kinds of rice and grain. Agriculture is very backward. A little tobacco, cotton, and silk is produced. The principal fabrics are of coarse hemp. The only products bartered with the Chinese are paper and ginseng. Mineral treasures abound; small
quantities of gold, silver, iron, copper, and lead are mined; and the Coreans are skillful in working metals. The pop. is variously estimated at from 5,000,000 to 20,000.000.
C. has steadfastly maintained a policy of strict isolation towards all outsiders, even towards the Chinese, with whom there is no intercourse save on occasion of the annual embassy, which is accompanied by a few privileged traders, and of the periodical fairs at the " gate-town," near the city of EtThg-hwang, in Mantchuria. The Chinese dislike to everything foreign is strengthened in the case of C. by traditions of ancient enmity between China and Ch'ao-sien, as C. was called in the 2d century n.c. The Mongol conquerors of China reduced C. also; but the Ming dynasty restored the Corean sover eign with the title of Kaoli-Wang (from which word Raoli, through the Japanese form Ku-rai, comes the name Corea). Strange to say. the seeds of Christianity were sown in C. in 1592 by the invading army, composed chiefly of Christian converts, of the Japa nese usurper, Taicosama. Hamel, a Dutch sailor, was wrecked here, and detained for 13 years; from his narrative it was that, till very recently, most of our scanty knowledge of C. was obtained. In 1784, Jesuit missionaries found their way into C., and had great success amongst the people. Front 1835 till 1866, several intrepid and devoted French missionaries contrived to find shelter; and, in spite of incessant persecutions, the Chris tian community continued rather to increase, rising again, in 1852, to 11,000 souls. The massacre of nine missionaries, in 1806, led to an invasion of C. by a small French force. but without success. Nor have two successive American expeditions, provoked by an attack on an American vessel, succeeded in contributing at all to break down the barriers that have so long separated the Coreans from the rest of the world.
See Journeys in North China, by Rev. A. Williamson (1870); Ilistoire de l'Eglise de Corse, par Ch. Dallet, Missionaire Apostolique (Paris, 1874).