Seoul

Seoul (서울; Korean: [sʰʌ.ul]) – officially the Seoul Special City – is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea, forming the heart of the Seoul Capital Area, which includes the surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province, the world's 14th largest city and second largest metropolitan area. It is home to over half of all South Koreans along with 678,102 international residents.

Situated on the Han River, Seoul's history stretches back more than two thousand years when it was founded in 18 BCE by Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. It continued as the capital of Korea under the Joseon Dynasty. The Seoul Capital Area contains five UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Changdeok Palace, Hwaseong Fortress, Jongmyo Shrine, Namhansanseong and the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty. Seoul is surrounded by mountains, the tallest being Mt. Bukhan, the world's most visited national park per square foot. Modern landmarks include the iconic N Seoul Tower, the gold-clad 63 Building, the neofuturistic Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Lotte World, the world's second largest indoor theme park,Moonlight Rainbow Fountain, the world's longest bridge fountain and the Sevit Floating Islands. The birthplace of K-pop and the Korean Wave, Seoul received over 10 million international visitors in 2014, making it the world's 9th most visited city and 4th largest earner in tourism.

National University

A national university is generally a university created or managed by a government, but which may at the same time operate autonomously without direct control by the state.

National University may refer to:

See also

Seoul National University

Seoul National University (SNU; Korean, 서울대학교, Seoul Daehakgyo, colloquially Seouldae) is a national research university located in Seoul, the capital of Korea.

The university was founded in its current form in 1946. It is located on three campuses: the main campus in Gwanak and two additional campuses in Daehangno and Suwon. The university comprises sixteen colleges, one graduate school, and nine professional schools. The student body consists of nearly 17,000 undergraduate and 11,000 graduate students. Since its founding, Seoul National University has been widely considered to be the most prestigious university in the country. According to data compiled by KEDI, the university spends more on its students per capita than any other university in the country that enrolls at least 10,000.

Seoul National University holds a memorandum of understanding with over 700 academic institutions in 40 countries, the World Bank, and the country's first ever general academic exchange program with the University of Pennsylvania. The Graduate School of Business offers dual master's degrees with Duke University, ESSEC Business School, and the Peking University, double-degrees at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Yale School of Management, and MBA-, MS-, and PhD-candidate exchange programs with universities in ten countries on four continents. The university's international faculty headcount is 242 or 4% of the total.Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and Fields Medal recipient Hironaka Heisuke are on the faculty roster.

South Korea

Coordinates: 36°N 128°E / 36°N 128°E / 36; 128

South Korea ( listen), officially the Republic of Korea (Hangul: 대한민국; hanja: 大韓民國; RR: Daehanminguk,  listen) and commonly referred to as Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name Korea is derived from the ancient Kingdom of Goguryeo, also known as Koryŏ. Highly urbanized at 92%, Koreans lead a distinctive urban lifestyle with half of them living in the Seoul Capital Area, the world's second largest city with over 25 million residents and a leading global city with the fourth largest economy, rated in 2016 as the world's most livable megacity and safest city to live in. Highly mountainous, Korea is a popular winter sport destination in Asia, hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing at 1st century BC. One of them, Goguryeo, ruled Northeast China, parts of Russia and Mongolia under Gwanggaeto the Great. Since their unification into Silla and Balhae in the 7th century, Korea enjoyed over a millennium of relative tranquility under long lasting dynasties with innovations like Hangul, the unique alphabet created by Sejong the Great in 1446, enabling anyone to easily learn to read and write. Its rich and vibrant culture left 17 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan in 1910 due to its strategic and central location, after whose surrender in 1945, it was divided into North and South Korea. A North Korean invasion lead to the Korean War (1950–53). Peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the world's 10th largest defence budget and strong global alliances. In 2016, Korea was rated as the world's safest country to live in, with the lowest crime rate.

University

A university (Latin: universitas, "a whole") is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which grants academic degrees in various subjects and typically provides undergraduate education and postgraduate education. The word "university" is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars."

History

Definition

The original Latin word "universitas" refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc." At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialised "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.

In modern usage the word has come to mean "An institution of higher education offering tuition in mainly non-vocational subjects and typically having the power to confer degrees," with the earlier emphasis on its corporate organization considered as applying historically to Medieval universities.