Korea Fast Facts

For a traveler traveling to Korea it is always useful to know some essential facts about Korea. One can find a few fast facts about South Korea listed below.

Knowing facts about South Korea is essential to making one’s trip successful and eventful. The international telephone access code is 82. The area code is 02 for Seoul and 051 for Pusan. To keep in touch while in Kwangju, note that here the area code is 062 and in Taejon it is 042. To make an outgoing direct-dialed international call from South Korea dial 001 or 002 followed by the country code and number. For local directory assistance one can dial 114. Dialing 0077 will connect you to an international operator.

It is quite helpful if you remember that the time in Korea is ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) by 9 hours. The Korean time is 14 hours ahead of New York and Montreal, 12 hours ahead of Sao Paulo, 8 hours ahead of Berlin and about 1 hour ahead of Shanghai.

Business tourists would also do well to remember a few facts about Korea. The banks are open for business hours from 9.30 A.M. to 4.30 P.M. from Monday through Friday. On Saturday’s it remains open from9.30 A.M. to 1.30 P.M. The departmental stores have shopping hours between 10.30 A.M. to 7.30 P.M. including Sundays. They are closed once a week and their days differ individually. One might however, find the smaller shops open between 8.30 A.M. to 6 P.M.

Holidays are essential facts about Korea which all tourists especially business tourists would do well to know about. New Year’s Day and the day after (1-2 January) sees banks and most business establishments close. Then there is the Lunar New Year which comes for three days either in January or February which is a holiday period. Other holidays include Independence Movement Day (1 March), Arbor Day (5 April), Children's Day (5 May), Buddha's Birthday (May; date of celebration varies), Memorial Day (6 June), Constitution Day (17 July), Liberation Day (15 August), Ch'usok, or the Harvest Moon Festival, also known as Korean Thanksgiving (celebrated for three days in September or October; dates vary), National Foundation Day (3 October), and Christmas Day (25 December).

The South Korea population enjoys a continental climate with cold, dry winters and hot, rainy summers.