한국

Etymology
.

Proper noun

 * 1) Korea
 * 2) South Korea

Etymology
, originally short for, but now short for.

originally refers to the, three ancient tribal confederations in the southern Korean Peninsula. The word was later conflated with the unrelated, which also became known as and which united in the seventh century to form the united Korean nation. The reference in is to the Three Kingdoms, not the original tribes.

Usage notes

 * After Korea was divided in 1945, South Koreans have generally referred to Korea by the name, a shortening of South Korea's official name, , which is itself based on , briefly the official name between 1897 and 1910 when the Korean monarchy claimed imperial status.
 * The older name for Korea, used between 1394 and 1945, was . North Korea continues to use this name, but it has been largely deprecated in South Korea.
 * In contexts where North Korea is not involved, will usually refer to South Korea specifically. In contexts having to do with North Korea,  is preferred. Note that the logic to this is that South Korea claims to be the sole legitimate government of the Korean people and hence to be the sole "Korea", so there is no need to specify that it de facto controls only the southern half when North Korea is not part of the discussion. The same goes for North Korea, which will refer to itself as  without specifying.
 * will refer to North Korea as and South Korea as, following Chinese norms.