korea
n. uncountablen. a region in East Asia that is divided into two countries, North Korea and South Korea.
n. a peninsula in East Asia, currently divided into two sovereign states: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea.
I want to visit Korea next summer.
Many international students choose to study in Korea to experience its unique blend of traditional culture and modern technology.
The history of Korea in the twentieth century is marked by a period of colonial rule followed by a conflict that resulted in the current division of the peninsula.
First attested as Core in the 1598 English translation of the 1596 Itinerario of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, from the original Dutch Core, itself from Portuguese according to van Linschoten's account. The spelling Corea was more common in Early Modern English, likely through Core + -ia. Ultimately a sixteenth-century borrowing by Europeans from some variety of Chinese. Compare Mandarin 高麗 /高丽 (Gāolí) but especially Hokkien 高麗 /高丽 (Ko-lê), which matches the Dutch-Portuguese vowels exactly. These are Chinese pronunciations of Sino-Korean 고려(高麗) (Goryeo), Korea's official name between 918 and 1394 and still used by Chinese people to refer to the country for centuries thereafter; this itself being a shortening of 高句麗 (“Goguryeo”), an ancient Korean kingdom in the first millennium. Doublet of Goryeo, directly from Korean. Some Korean authors claim an Arabic intermediary instead, but this is impossible because the actual medieval Arabic word for Korea was a variant of السيلى (al-sīlā, see also Silla).
When used without a qualifier, it typically refers to the cultural or geographic region; in political contexts, 'North' or 'South' is usually specified.