The little country that could
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008Size.
I’m from Texas. It’s true - everything in Texas is bigger. I wonder if the reverse is true for Korea?
South Korea encompasses a skant 38,492 square miles - which makes it slightly bigger than the state of Indiana but slightly smaller than Kentucky. Woah~ that is small. What about population? Kentucky has roughly 4,500,000 residents while Korea has just under 50,000,000. That makes Texas roughly half the population of South Korea. So, Kentucky has 40,411 square miles of land with about 111 people per square mile. Texas fares a bit better with 268,601 square miles - that’s roughly 93 people per square mile. Korea? 1300 people per square mile. Shall we have a chart? Oh man I love charts:
- Korea - 38,492 square miles - 50 million people - 1300 people per square mile
- Kentucky - 40,411 square miles - 4.5 million people - 111 people per square mile
- Texas - 268,601 square miles - 24 million people - 93 people per square mile
That means that even if we kicked everyone out and put Korea’s population within the borders of the Lone Star state, there would still be 186 people per square mile. Nuts to that!
Notice that even though China is slightly larger in land mass and more than four times the population, they have a much smaller ecological footprint. I wonder where Korea ranks? I couldn’t find any pertinent data. I’d imagine it’s comparable to either Japan or China ( Sacrilegious! 
)
The most obvious reason for this discrepancy is how much America is consumer-driven. We buy a lot of stuff. Also, we like our space. We like a little bit more space than our East Asian friends. We also don’t build up as much - more of a side to side motion. I’m sure eventually we’ll start building up.
I’m certainly not an expert (they don’t teach much about nothing here in college) and I’m also not trying to get into a eco-battle over who is better, but I wanted to write about the sheer size difference between these countries. It’s also kind of mind boggling just how many of us are learning Korean - a language that is from a country that is easy to miss on a world map (“Isn’t that little Florida looking thing part of China?” ) .
Thoughts?
Posted by Matthew in How Koreans Do It |
August 5th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Hahahahahaha, “the little Florida looking thing.” First time I heard that.
I think your title says it all though. “The little country that could.” Everyone’s always caught up with China and Japan and Korea gets lost in between the two. And in fairly modern history, Korea was always considered a “little brother.”
But if you look back at it’s ancient history, Korea had a huge presence, and I think was even the dominant presence in Eastern Asia.
And now, I think it’s slowly regaining more and more influence in Asia in all aspects. Culture, economics, politics. I think Korea is doing well for itself!
It’s the little country that could
August 5th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
try looking for singapore on the map .. if i’m not wrong we’re only 200 plus square miles. we only need an hour to travel from one end to another.
that’s why i cannot understand it when people tell me korea is small. but i agree that korea is indeed doing very well!
August 9th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
haha yeah I didn’t even mention how many times south korea can fit into Texas - it’s almost 7 (!)
yeah Singapore - wow I didn’t even think about just how small it actually is. It amazes me just how spread out America really is.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:28 am
I got back to Toronto, Canada from Korea about two weeks ago, and the thing that struck me while I was being driven back from the airport was the size and number of big houses. These are huge houses– possibly the equivalent of around three or four family-sized apartments in Korea (and I think that’s a conservative estimate). Yet, only 3-5 people tend to live in these enormous dwellings. That really is something that “re-surprised” me upon coming home.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:03 am
The thing that surprised me when I came back from Korea this summer was the sheer driving distance between cities. Currently, I live north of Dallas and it takes me almost three hours to get to my hometown - the same amount of time on a KTX bullet train from Seoul to Busan! Practically one end of Korea to the other - as opposed to the relative small scratch I made on Texas’s highway.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I have never been to Taxes, but I’ve been to Key West, the southern most tip of the USA.
I drove down there only to swim in both Atlantic Ocean and Gulf sea, in December!
It took me almost 24 hour drive to cover 1,500 mile from NYC to Key West.
As I drove away from the winter season in NYC, the weather changed, gradually changing in temperature.
When I reached Miami, it was summer time and had to turn the AC on.
Yes, America is big!
However, my wife told me that she took that much time to get to 완 도 on a day when all the city people rushed to those vacation spots at the same time she visited there, or was it one of those holiday ‘Exodus’(?), I am not sure.
Korea is not small in the travel-time wide, I guess.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:17 am
[…] 1000 원 buys you up to 6 miles worth of track and 100 원 for every additional 3 miles. Not bad. Actually that’s more than not bad - that’s a great deal. Remember in my post about the size of Korea? We’re not talking more than a little more than 230 square miles for the whole city with the majority of stops located nearby each other. So we’re talking a cheap ride no doubt. Buy a 10 dollar card and call it a day. […]