This South Korea trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and covers the country from the Three Kingdoms and Sejong the Great's alphabet to the Korean War, the DMZ, the Miracle on the Han River, the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the 2002 World Cup semi-final and the Korean Wave that gave the world Gangnam Style, BTS, Parasite and Squid Game. It also takes in the food (kimchi, bulgogi, soju, banchan and metal chopsticks), the flag, the national flower, Jeju Island, Hallasan, the chaebol, conscription, the world's lowest fertility rate and the martial-law drama of 2024. The easy questions are ones most people know (the capital, the peninsula's northern neighbour, the martial art that became an Olympic sport). The medium ones ask about Hangul, the armistice, the flag's trigrams and the country's biggest companies. The hard ones want the width of the DMZ, the year Korean age was abolished, the dynasty that gave Korea its name and the admiral behind the turtle ships. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the country's official name?
Republic of Korea
The North is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; the Korean name Daehan Minguk recalls the short-lived Korean Empire.
Q 02Roughly what share of South Korea's 52 million people live in the Seoul metropolitan area?
A half
That makes greater Seoul one of the most populous metropolitan areas on Earth; Busan, Daegu and Incheon are the next biggest cities.
Q 03The name "Korea" derives from which historical kingdom?
Goryeo
The Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) unified the peninsula and laid the basis for modern Korean identity.
Q 04Which three kingdoms made up Korea's Three Kingdoms period?
Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla
Silla, the smallest, allied with Tang China and unified the peninsula in 676.
Q 05The dynasty that created Hangul and later closed the country off ruled from 1392 until which year?
1897
In 1897 King Gojong renamed the state the Korean Empire, which Japan annexed in 1910.
Q 06Which king created the Korean alphabet, Hangul, to promote literacy among ordinary people?
Sejong the Great
The script was announced around 1443 and published in 1446 in a text called Hunminjeongeum.
Q 07Hangul Day, a public holiday in South Korea, is celebrated on which date?
9 October
It marks the 1446 publication of the Hunminjeongeum; North Korea marks its own version on 15 January.
Q 08Which admiral's "turtle ships" helped halt the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s?
Yi Sun-sin
Civilian "righteous armies" and Ming Chinese troops also helped repel Toyotomi Hideyoshi's forces.
Q 09In which year was the southern zone of the peninsula established as an independent state?
1948
Syngman Rhee won its first presidential election that May; the North declared its own state a month after the South.
Q 10The Korean War ended in 1953 with what?
An armistice
Because no peace treaty was ever signed, the two Koreas are technically still at war.
Q 11How wide is the Korean Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South?
About 4 km
It runs 250 km across the peninsula and has become an accidental wildlife refuge.
Q 12The DMZ intersects which line of latitude?
The 38th parallel
The Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, near the western end, is where the two sides still meet.
Q 13General Park Chung Hee took power in a coup in which year?
1961
His rule oversaw the export-led boom later called the Miracle on the Han River; he was assassinated in 1979.
South Korea's rapid post-war economic transformation is known by what nickname?
Q 21Which two video games are the most popular in South Korea's huge esports scene?
League of Legends and StarCraft
Competitive gaming is followed like a mainstream sport, especially among the young.
Q 22Which 2012 song by Psy first pushed K-pop into the global mainstream?
Gangnam Style
It topped charts worldwide after going viral in August 2012.
Q 23The 1992 debut of which group is regarded as the turning point that created modern K-pop?
Seo Taiji and Boys
The genre has since absorbed hip-hop, R&B, EDM and more on top of Korean roots.
The Miracle on the Han River
The economy was one of the fastest-growing in the world from the early 1960s to the late 1990s.
Q 15The 1987 pro-democracy protests that ended authoritarian rule are known as what?
The June Democratic Struggle
They led to the current Sixth Republic and its directly elected president.
Q 16Which South Korean president won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his "Sunshine Policy" towards the North?
Kim Dae-jung
He had held a landmark summit with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang that June.
Q 17In which year did Seoul host the Summer Olympics?
1988
The host nation finished fourth in the medal table with 12 golds.
Q 18At the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted with Japan, how far did South Korea get?
The semi-finals
It was the first Asian team ever to reach the last four.
Q 19Which South Korean county hosted the 2018 Winter Olympics?
Pyeongchang
South Korea has won more Winter Olympic medals than any other Asian country.
Q 20Which Korean fighting art became an official Olympic sport in 2000?
Taekwondo
Its modern rules were standardised in the 1950s and 1960s.
Q 24In 2020 BTS became the first all-South Korean act to top the Billboard Hot 100 with which single?
Dynamite
The group debuted under Big Hit Entertainment in 2013.
Q 25What does the name BTS, Bangtan Sonyeondan, literally mean?
Bulletproof Boy Scouts
The seven-member group later also adopted the English backronym Beyond the Scene.
Q 26Bong Joon-ho's Parasite made history in 2020 as the first what?
Non-English-language film to win Best Picture
It had already won the Palme d'Or, only the fourth film to take both prizes.
Q 27How many players compete in the deadly children's games of Squid Game?
456
The prize was 45.6 billion won; the show became Netflix's most-watched series at launch.
Q 28The global boom in music, dramas and film from the country is known by what name?
Hallyu
Unusually, these cultural exports are part of a formal state development strategy.
Q 29What is South Korea's fermented, usually spicy vegetable side dish served at almost every meal?
Kimchi
Meals come with numerous side dishes, or banchan, around a bowl of short-grain rice.
Q 30Korea is unique among East Asian countries in eating with chopsticks made of what?
Metal
Metal chopsticks have been dug up at Goguryeo archaeological sites.