KOREA, ko-rea, COREA, or CHOSEN, since 29 Aug. 1910, an integral part of the em pire of Japan. The name means Morning Splen dor. By the census of 1910 it contains 2,274,263 native dwellings and a population of 13,115,449, the females numbering 6,169,610 and the males 6,945,539, the discrepancy in sex numbers arising from the neglect of female infants, 146,147 Japanese, 1,818 Chinese and 889 other foreign ers. It comprises a strip of coast and a penin sula projecting southward from Manchuria, di vided from it by the great valleys of Yalu or Amnok northwest and the Tuman northeast, both rising in the colossal peak of Paik-tu (White Head), 8,300 feet high. The Japan Sea divides it from Japan, whose southern most island (Kiushu) approaches its southern tip within 100 miles, separated by Korea Strait with large islands midway; to the west, Korea Bay and the Yellow Sea, marked off by Shan tung Peninsula, divide it from China. A dense archipelago fringes it south and west. Its parallels are from 12' to 2' N., or about the same as from Concord, N. H., to Wilming ton, N. C., and average much south of Italy; its meridians, 124° 13' to 130° 54' E. It• is about 600 miles long by 135 broad; area, 84,738 square mites.
Korea is traversed north to south by a mountain backbone of striking individuality: a perpetual zigzag, skirting the eastern shore with slender coast-lands, in a steep solid wall unbroken for hundreds of miles save by Yung hing or Broughton's Bay at the northern neck. In the north it has summits 4,000 to 8,000 feet high, and at Cape Pelissier, about lat. cul minates in Mount Popoff (4,800 feet) • thence the main chain turns southwest and ends in the extinct volcano of Mount Auckland (6,700 feet), on Quelpaert Island, while to the east it throws out low hills and plateaus. The islands of the southern archipelago, verdant rocks worn into the semblance of fantastic castellated ruins, are the ends of its spurs. On the eastern side the ridge is timbered to the summit; on the west almost treeless, and seamed with deep ravines shallowing out into broad fertileplains, occupying most of Korea.
On the east below the boundary there is but one river of any size, the Nak-tong along the southeastern uplands, and almost no islands; the west has 10 considerable streams, and the coast is thickly notched with harbors and fringed with fertile islets.
The chief rivers are, from the north: The great Yalu or Amnok a mile wide and rising 40 feet in flood, navigable 30 miles for sea going junks, and 175 for boats, to Wi-won, and now crossed by a superb steel highway bridge uniting Korea with the trunk lines through Russia to Europe. Opposite is the Tuman. The Taidong or Ta-tong, navigable for boats 75 miles to Ping-yang. The Han ("the rivern), rises on the western slopes of the eastern ridge but 30 miles from the Japan Sea, drain ing nearly the whole breadth of the peninsula with two main arms, and flowing into a bay of the Yellow Sea among islands. About 30 miles up lies Keijo, or Seoul, the capital, and a line of small steamers runs between it and Chemulpo, on Imperatrice Gulf as much farther south; boats ascend nearly 100 miles more. The Nak-tong empties into Korea Strait near Fusan, and is navigable 140 miles for vessels drawing four and one-half feet. The best harbors are Gen-san and Port Lazareff, on Broughton's Bay; the best on the south coast is Fusan on Korea Strait, now finely equipped with docks for large steamers. The tides on the west and south are very high and rapid, often leaving vessels stranded on mud banks.
The climate is much like that of the eastern coast of America in the same latitudes; the north and centre have very hot summers and severe winters; the south is like the Carolinas, and tempered by the ocean breezes. The Han is frozen in winter so that at Seoul, where it is 400 yards wide, it is available for cart traffic three months of the year, from December to February. The rainfall averages 36 inches, 22 in the crop season. A fall of only 4.1 inches in 1901 created a famine.