South Korea | History, Map, Flag, Capital, Population ... - Britannica

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Geologically, South Korea consists in large part of Precambrian rocks (i.e., more than about 540 million years old) such as granite and gneiss. The country is largely mountainous, with small valleys and narrow coastal plains. The Taebaek Mountains run in roughly a north-south direction along the eastern coastline and northward into North Korea, forming the country’s drainage divide. From them several mountain ranges branch off with a northeast-southwest orientation. The most important of these are the Sobaek Mountains, which undulate in a long S-shape across the peninsula. None of South Korea’s mountains are very high: the Taebaek Mountains reach an elevation of 5,604 feet (1,708 meters) at Mount Seorak in the northeast, and the Sobaek Mountains reach 6,283 feet (1,915 meters) at Mount Jiri. The highest peak in South Korea, the extinct volcano Mount Halla on Jeju Island, is 6,398 feet (1,950 meters) above sea level.

South Korea has two volcanic islands—Jeju, off the peninsula’s southern tip, and Ulleung, about 85 miles (140 km) east of the mainland in the East Sea—and a small-scale lava plateau in Gangwon province. In addition, South Korea claims and occupies a group of rocky islets—known variously as Liancourt Rocks, Dok Islands (Korean), and Take Islands (Japanese)—some 55 miles (85 km) southeast of Ulleung Island; these islets also have been claimed by Japan.

There are fairly extensive lowlands along the lower parts of the country’s main rivers. The eastern coastline is relatively straight, whereas the western and southern have extremely complicated ria (i.e., creek-indented) coastlines with many islands. The shallow Yellow Sea and the complex Korean coastline produce one of the most pronounced tidal variations in the world—about 30 feet (9 meters) maximum at Incheon, the entry port for Seoul.

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