Republic of KoreaCountry AnalysisMARK 465 – International MarketingApril 2, 2014Meghan MaloyBasil NikolopoulosXiaoman WuJiacheng ZhuIntroductionThe Republic of Korea, also known as South Korea, is a country occupying the southern part of the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. The history of Korea can be traced back to 2333 BC, when Gojoseon was founded by Dangun. Based on linguistic evidence, it appears that the Korean people immigrated there largely from the Altai Mountains and initially came from Manchuria, Mongolia, and China (“History before Division” 2014). In 1945, the northern and southern parts of Korea were occupied by troops from the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively, turning the country into one of the few divided countries in the world (“History after Partition” 2014). The capital of South Korea is Seoul. The current leader, President Park Geun-hye, the first female president in Korean history, was elected in 2013. South Korea has a presidential republican system of government. Combined with centralized economic planning and government regulation, its mixed economic system has given this developed country a high standard of living (“Introduction” 2014). In recent decades, South Korea's economy has achieved a high level of growth. Along with Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, South Korea is a member of the Four Asian Tigers and is the only developed country included in the Next Eleven group (“Economic Statistics” 2014). However, foreign goods and services attempting to enter the Korean market to compete with domestic competition still face several barriers to entry resulting from excessive Korean government oversight. High government tariffs and other means of restriction lead to increased costs....... half of the paper... high quality and easily available. There are approximately 30.1 million active trunk lines in use and 53.625 million mobile lines in use. Internet usage is also in high demand with approximately 39.4 million Internet users (“World Factbook” 2014). South Korea is currently the top country in Internet speed, and recent technological developments will soon make Korean Internet speed nearly 50 times faster than an average U.S. connection (Neal 2014). The media in Korea consists of multiple national television networks, including Seoul Broadcasting Service (SBS) which is the largest private network. SBS has a widespread network across all types of media, including radio and television (“World Factbook” 2014). Korea's communications network embraces and incorporates the latest technologies, and this progressive attitude makes it one of the most advanced in the world.