Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The flower blooms continuously from summer to autumn, and
mugunghwa
blossoms ap-
pear regularly on government and military signs and seals.
While South Korea was once a haven for a wide variety of large mammals, including tigers,
bears, and deer, deforestation and hunting—often for animal parts used in traditional medi-
cine—has drastically reduced the animal population over the last century or so. The tigers
are gone, although a few are still believed to inhabit the remote mountain stretches of North
Korea, and only small numbers of black bears, roe deer, and Siberian musk deer remain,
mainly in national parks such as Jirisan and Seoraksan. Wild boars, wolves, foxes, rabbits,
and squirrels are more common.
Due to its position on the migration route of the bird species that flee Manchuria and
Siberia in the winter for the warmer climes of Southeast Asia, South Korea is something of
a haven for bird-watchers. There are only around 50 varieties indigenous to the peninsula,
but another 400 or so visit regularly. Residents include the black-billed magpie and Euras-
ian tree sparrow, while hooded cranes, vultures, geese, and falcons make regular stopovers
at wetlands such as Suncheon Bay in the southwest.
Interestingly, arguably the most ecologically rich area on the peninsula is the DMZ di-
viding the Koreas. With any kind of human presence in the area—4 kilometers (2.5 miles)
wide and 248 kilometers (155 miles) long—strictly forbidden for the last 50 years, animals
and plants have been free to take it over, making it one of the world's best-kept swaths of
temperate land. It is home to around 50 species of mammals, including the leopard and rare
Asiatic black bear, as well as at least two endangered types of crane. While some environ-
mentalists and officials have mulled transforming the Zone into a nature reserve when the
two Koreas eventually reunite, its fate remains highly uncertain—like most post-reunifica-
tion scenarios.
It's easy enough to view South Korea and the Korean people as a monolithic entity. The
country has no significant minority groups, and the people share only a handful of sur-
names. The lives of most citizens are governed by a nearly identical series of experiences
and milestones—intensive tutoring and do-or-die school entrance exams for children, man-
datory military service for young men, marriage and children for young women—and most
