Korean seas and rivers, found on the map
Four seas and two rivers, which is the shortest deck on the site and is honestly what the country has: the mountains sit close to both coasts, so nothing here runs far, and the water that matters is the sea on three sides. One round covers the whole map.
No labels on the map and nothing to pick from a list. The question names a place and you point at it, and every answer comes with a paragraph about what you just found.
6 to find, 6 a run.
One round, and 5 of 6 passes the whole map.
Every one on the map
Every place listed below can be asked in this game. Places you find in a passed round drop out of your remaining pool. Grouped into 5 learning regions, matching the rounds on the South Korea guide. Regions with no places in this map’s selection are omitted. Shared rivers and seas appear in one learning group, even when they cross regional boundaries.
Capital region1
- Han
Gangwon1
- Sea of Japan
Chungcheong1
- Yellow Sea
Gyeongsang2
- Korea Strait
- Nakdong
Jeju1
- East China Sea
What the map tells you about each one
The paragraph the game shows when you find a place, for all 6 of the ones written by hand. Reading them first is not cheating.
- Han
- The Han is about 494km long and is the river Seoul is built along, a kilometer wide as it passes through the city. It has two branches, the North Han and the South Han, that meet east of the capital, and the northern one rises inside North Korea. The postwar economy was called the miracle on the Han River after it.
- Nakdong
- At about 510km the Nakdong is the longest river lying entirely inside South Korea, draining most of the southeast. In the summer of 1950 the line held along it was the last defensible ground the South and its allies had, and the perimeter around Busan behind it is what the Incheon landing relieved.
- Yellow Sea
- Koreans call it the West Sea. It averages only about 44 meters deep and is named for the silt the Huang He carries into it. The tides on the Korean side are enormous — nine meters at Incheon — which is what makes the west coast the tidal flats it is, and why the sea floor there is walkable twice a day.
- Sea of Japan
- South Korea calls this the East Sea and has argued at the International Hydrographic Organization since 1992 that both names should be printed; the maps here carry the name the source data uses. It is a different sea from the one on the other coast: over 3,000 meters deep in places, with almost no tide and no continental shelf worth the name.
- Korea Strait
- About 200km wide with the Japanese island of Tsushima in the middle of it, which is close enough to see from a Korean hilltop on a clear day. The warm Tsushima Current runs north through it and is why the east coast is milder than its latitude. Yi Sun-sin fought here in 1592 and the Russian Baltic Fleet was destroyed here in 1905.
- East China Sea
- The water between Jeju, China and the Ryukyus. Ieodo, a rock 4.6 meters below the surface about 150km southwest of Jeju, is out here: South Korea built an ocean research station on stilts over it in 2003, and China disputes the zone it stands in without claiming the rock is land.
How this one works
How many seas and rivers are on the map?
6. Every one of them is on the map, and a run asks 6 of them. Pass a round and the places you found in it drop out of the pool, so the next run is what you have left.
What is a round?
6 of them, and 5 right passes it. One round covers the whole map, and the counter at the top of the South Korea page counts the ones behind you. Passing is what banks a round's finds: miss the mark and nothing is taken off the map, so every place that round asked about is still there to be asked again. Nothing you have banked is ever asked again while anything is still unfound, so the last round of the map is however many are left, and three quarters of that passes it.
Can I start the map over?
Yes. "Reset this map" under the counter puts all 6 back in the pool and sets the rounds to zero the moment you press it, so the whole map is there to be found again from nothing. It clears this map only; the other maps of South Korea keep their progress.
Do I need an account?
No. The game plays in the page, and a guest's progress is kept in their own browser. Signing in carries it between devices and earns XP for a run.
What happens when I get one wrong?
The map names what you actually hit, then lights up the right answer in green and tells you something about the place. Missing one is how most of this map gets learned.
The other maps of South Korea
Sweden has the same map in Swedish waters. Denmark has the same map in Danish waters. India has the same map in Indian waters. Mexico has the same map in Mexican waters. United States has the same map in American waters. China has the same map in Chinese waters. Turkey has the same map in Turkish waters. France has the same map in French waters. Japan has the same map in Japanese waters. Germany has the same map in German waters. Spain has the same map in Spanish waters. Brazil has the same map in Brazilian waters. United Kingdom has the same map in British waters. Italy has the same map in Italian waters. All three together on the South Korea atlas page, the country itself on the South Korea guide, and the other two hundred on the world map.