A small nation, around the size of Britain, Korea is located on a peninsula that protrudes southward from the northeastern corner of the Asian continent. It is an old nation, whose people evolved as one nation from the seventh century until 1945, when the nation was separated by the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The ensuing cold war created two Korean governments, one in the north known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and another in the south known as the Republic of Korea.The two Koreas engaged in a bitter war between 1950 and 1953 and remained separated as of 1990, even though the two governments began talk to each other in 1971. South Korea and North Korea took distinctly different paths of development after they were separated. By 1990 North Korea had emerged as a staunch communist society, while South Korea was evolving into a liberal democracy after many years of military dictatorship. The two societies, shared a common tradition and culture.

Meanwhile, much of what consequently came to constitute China proper had been unified for the first time under Qin Shi Huangdi. consequently, Yen fell to the Qin state; the Qin Dynasty was in turn replaced by a new dynasty, the Han .In 195 B.C. a former officer of Yen took over the throne of Choson by trickery, after which he and his descendants governed the kingdom for eighty years; but in 109-108 B.C. China attacked Choson and destroyed it as a political entity. The Han Chinese then governed the territory north of the Han River as the 4 Eastern Districts; the original territory of Choson became Lolang.Until the Han time the Korean Peninsula had been a veritable Chinese colony. During some 400 years, Lolang, the core of the colony, had become a great center of Chinese art, philosophy, industry, and commerce. Many Chinese immigrated into the area; the determine of China extended beyond the territory it administered. The tribal states south of the Han River paid tribute to the Chinese and patterned much of their civilization and government after Chinese models.

Goguryeo ( Koguryo ) Kingdom (B.C.37~A.D.668)
Goguryeo covered large parts of present-day Manchuria. The country was not only the most powerful and most aggressive kingdom of three kingdoms in existence (Baekje and Silla being the other two) but also the most powerful in Northeast Asia in the 5th century. King Gwanggaeto the Great (375-413), in particular, conquered the largest territory in the entire history of Korea.