History of Korea
After the end of WWII in 1945, the Allies divided the country into a northern area (protected by the Soviets) and a southern area protected (primarily by the United States). In 1948, when the powers failed to agree on the formation of a single government, this partition became the modern states of North and South Korea. The peninsula was divided at the 38th Parallel: the "Republic of Korea" was created in the south, with the backing of the US and Western Europe, and the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" in the north, with the backing of the Soviets and the communist People's Republic of China. The new premier of North Korea, Kim il-Sung, launched the Korean War in 1950 in an attempt to reunify the country under Communist rule. After immense material and human destruction, the conflict ended with a cease-fire in 1953. The two nations officially remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed. In 1991, both states were accepted into the United Nations.
Constitution of South Korea
The Constitution declares South Korea a "democratic republic" (taken from Article 1 of Constitutional Charter of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea of 1919), its territory consisting of "the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands," and that "The Republic of Korea shall seek unification and shall formulate and carry out a policy of peaceful unification based on the principles of freedom and democracy." There are disputes over what "freedom and democracy" mean in Korea, but the direct translation of the Korean word used in the constitution (자유민주적 기본질서) would be liberal democracy.