The territory of the Republic of Korea, including the Korean Peninsula and all of its annexed islands, has a total area of 223,617 km² as of the end of 2020. South Korea has an area of 100,413 km² and North Korea an area of 123,214 km². Thus, South Korea accounts for 44.9% of the territory of the Republic of Korea. The total length of Korea’s coastline is 15,282 km as of 2020. The west and the south coasts, which have a complex shoreline curvature, account for 91% of the total length of the coastline, and the east coast accounts for 9%. 

 

 It is necessary to specify the year along with these statistics because the size of Korea is not stable. Korea is growing each year due to land reclamation projects, with formerly submerged areas along the coast being drained or filled to create new land. Estuary banks and floodgates are built, breakwaters are erected to block the sea, and former tidelands are changed to create land for agriculture, industry, residences, and public facilities. Through extensive reclamation projects, the land area continues to increase gradually. Between 1980 and 2018, the territorial area of South Korea alone has increased from 98,011 km² to 100,378 km². In 2010, the area of the South exceeded 100,000 km² for the first time. Between 2014 and 2020, the length of Korea’s coastline increased by 319 km. The natural coastline decreased by 55 km, while the artificial coastline increased by 374 km as a result of coastal development, land reclamation, breakwater structures, and coastal roads.

 

 The total size of Korea’s territory (North and South combined) places Korea 85th among the 253 countries around the world. In comparison to other countries, Korea’s land area (North and South combined) is smaller than the global average but bigger than the global median. Korea is slightly larger than Cambodia (181,035 km²) and around two-thirds the size of the Philippines (300,000 km²), Vietnam (331,210 km²), and Japan (377,915 km²). The size of the Korean territory is similar to that of the United Kingdom (243,610 km²), Ghana (238,533 km²), Laos (236,800 km²), and Belarus (207,600 km²). 

 

 Large-scale reclamation projects began in earnest in the 1960s and 1970s. Along the western and southern coasts, the government led large-scale reclamation projects to secure more agricultural land. In the 1980s, the private sector also started initiating projects. Since the 1990s, the awareness of, and interest in, the value of reclaimed lands have grown. The needs of the environment, ecology, landscape, and education have been considered to ensure that the impacts from agricultural or industrial uses have been minimized on these reclaimed land projects.