Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles

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To write and edit Korea-related articles, please follow these conventions. For consistent naming of Korean people, places, and historical terms, see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean).


If you are not sure how to romanize a word, please also provide its hangul so that another user can later verify or correct your romanization.

Currently, there are two widely used Korean romanization systems:

  • Revised Romanization has been the official system in South Korea since 2000, and is based on the old official system that was used until 1984.
  • McCune–Reischauer was the official system in South Korea from 1984 to 2000. McCune–Reischauer is still often (though increasingly less often) used both inside and outside Korea. A variant of McCune–Reischauer is the official system in North Korea.

The preference is to use Revised Romanization for South Korean articles and for general articles on Korean history, culture, etc., and to use McCune–Reischauer (not the DPRK's official variant) for North Korean topics. Through the introduction of Korean name tables, however, both romanizations are featured in most Korea-related articles, with the preferred romanization being used for the article title and in the text of the article.

Korean words transliterated into English should use the Revised Romanization, unless they are used in specifically North Korean context – for example, Chosŏn'gŭl (instead of Joseon-geul) for Hangul. The exception to this rule are English words borrowed from Korean and frequently used in a non-Korean context, whose irregular spellings have crystallized in English. Examples of such words include Hangul, kimchi, and taekwondo [which should be spelled as "Hangeul (or Han-geul)", "gimchi", and "taegwondo" respectively in Revised Romanization, or as "Han'gŭl", "kimch'i", and "t'aekwŏndo" respectively, according to McCune–Reischauer].

Hangul and Hanja[edit]

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

Where relevant, Korean templates should be used in preference to long lists of romanized, Hangul, and Hanja spellings.

For articles that do not use infoboxes, the general rule is to transcribe a name or word into Hangul only once, at the first mention.

Today, North Koreans do not use Hanja, and South Koreans rarely use it, even for place names or personal names. Hanja may be appropriate in specific cases, such as for disambiguation or in some historical contexts.

There are, broadly, 2 conventions people follow:

  1. Goguryeo (Hangul: 고구려; Hanja: 高句麗)
  2. Goguryeo (고구려; 高句麗)

If you don't know the Hangul or Hanja for the name or word—or there are no Hanja—just leave them out and someone will add them later.

Mandarin Chinese transcriptions of indigenous Korean words and names (e.g. 寶拉 for the name Bora) are not Hanja as such, and typically do not merit inclusion in English Wikipedia articles.

Spaces between words[edit]

For Hangul, the basic rule of thumb is that there are spaces between words that are each 2 or more syllables in length, while there is no space between 2 one-character words or between a one-character word and a 2-or-more-character word. (The rules are of course actually much more complicated than this and depend upon the grammatical categories of the words in question, but this rule of thumb generally holds for nouns, which constitute most of the words in article titles.)

While Hangul and mixed script (Hangul and Hanja together) use spaces between words, text written only in Hanja is usually written without spaces. Thus, gosokhwa doro ("freeway" or "motorway") is written as 고속화 도로 (with a space) in Hangul, but as 高速化道路 (without a space) in Hanja.


Some pages or categories related to Korea need to be categorized within general categories. For example, Category:Military of South Korea is categorized within Category:Military by country. In such cases, it is useful to sort the page or category by country (see Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting). When categorizing Korea-specific content specific within general categories, the sort key should be set to one of the following:

  • Use "Korea" for content related to Korea as a whole.
  • Use "Korea, North" for content related specifically to North Korea.
  • Use "Korea, South" for content related specifically to South Korea.

By standardizing the sort keys, readers can search for Korea-related content in a consistent manner.

It is also often the case that content related specifically to North Korea or South Korea should be categorized within a general Korean category. For example, Category:Religion in North Korea is categorized within Category:Religion in Korea. In such cases, the sort key should be set to " North Korea" or " South Korea" (note the space in front of "North" and "South") so that they appear in the beginning of the page or subcategory list of the general Korean category.

Korean templates[edit]

A generic Korean article template has been created, with the following features:

Infobox templates[edit]

Infobox Korean name
Hangul {{{hangul}}}
Hanja {{{hanja}}}
Revised Romanization {{{rr}}}
McCune–Reischauer {{{mr}}}




With name table[edit]

No name table[edit]