• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.267-272
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• 2000

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42
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• pp.49-65
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• 1990

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.268-294
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• 1996

Social and population geography in Korea has been developed somewhat later than other special subjects of geography. But in recent years, it has attracted much interests of geographers, and accumulated a considerably large amount of research products. Seen in this context, it is resonable to expect that social and population geography will not only lead the development of geography in the future, but also contribute to the resolution of socio-spatial problems in Korea. From this point of view, we shall retrospect in this paper the progress of social and population geography in Korea since the 1950s, and look out its future prospect and further research tasks. In the first place, we discuss general concepts and major themes of social and population geography, and overview its development process, and than review in more details some important research products which would be categorized into five main subjects, that is, research methodology, urbanization and urban population phenomena, population movement and changing rural life, residential differentiation and urban redevelopment, and urban social life and regional social well-being. Finally, we consider briefly the future prospect and further tasks of social and population geography in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.160-197
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• 1996

The purpose of this study is to review research trends and issues of economic geography in Korea for the last fifty years by sub-fields of agricultural geography, industrial geography, commercial and service geography, and transportation geography. Research in Korean economic geography has progressed significantly in terms of the scope and the number of papers published during the last a half a century. Agricultural geography was a leading field of economic geography in Korea before mid-1970s. Since the mid-1970s, however, agricultural geography has turned over the leading role in economic geography to industrial geography. Classification and structure of agricultural region has been the most popular research theme in Korea, even though diverse topics has been dealt in the research of agricultulal geography in Korea during the last fifty years. In recent years, emphasis is given to study on the dynamics of agricultural region and regional differentiation of part-time farming. It is suggested that the future issues of research in agricultural geography in Korea are agricultural restructuring and changes in agricultural space under the WTO system, changes in rural area and agricultural region with the progress of informatization, changes in agricultural structures and rural society by the increase of part-time farming, governments agricultulal policy and its impacts, competitive advantages of Korean agricultulal products, and environmental impacts of agricultural restructuring. Research in industrial geography has remarkably progressed since the 1980s. Locational changes, regional industrial structure and formation of industrial region were the major topics of interest in the research of industrial geography in Korea before 1980. Since the early 1980s, in addition to the topics which were interested in before 1980, changes of industrial organization and industrial location, changes of production systems and industrial space development of high technology industries and science parks, industrial restructuring and regional economy, foreign direct investments, industrial linkages and industrial districts, and industrial policy and regional development have been the major research themes of industrial geography in Korea. Considerable number of papers has been published both in Korean journals and in foreign journals during this period. Considering global changes in the organization of industrial space, future research should be more focused on firms strategy for regaining competitive advantages, local and global perspectives of industry, industry and environmental changes, in addition to the topics which have been dealt in recent years. Research in commercial and service geography and transportation geography was negligible in Korea before the late 1970s. These two sub-fields in economic geography have begun to develop since 1980s. Periodic markets, structure of commercial area, and distribution of products were the major topics of interest in the 1980s in the commercial and service geography in Korea. In the 1990s, however reserch in producer services has been active with growth of producer services in Korean economy. It is suggested that regional changes with progress of informatization and technology, changes of international trade and regional changes, development of efficient distribution system, role of producer services in regional development, and network of producer services are the major issues to be studied in the future in the field of commercial and service geography in Korea. Commuting, distribution of products, and transportation networks have been the major topics of research in transportation geography in Korea. Diverse quantitative techniques have been applied in the most of the researches in transportation geography. It is required that future studies in transportation geography should also focus on societal and behavioral issues, policy issues regional impacts of new transportation facilities, an analysis of transportation system at the global or international level. Since the 1980s economic geography in Korea has considerably progressed with publication of papers and books. The progress can be regarded as successful in quantitative aspect, but not in quantitative aspects. For the development of Korean economic geography in both quantitative and qualitative aspects, it is necessary to promote international collaborative researches and interdisciplinary cooperations. Attention should also be given to the research on changes in competitive advantages and economic restructuring, changes of economic space with the development of high technology and the progress of informatization. economic development and culture. and foreign regional studies.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.273-301
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• 2008

This study aims not only to examine the globalization, imformationization, and networking as background of knowledge-information-based society, but also to clarify the research fields of 'geography of knowledge' and further research themes for economic geography in a knowledge-information-based society. As a result of globalization, the degree of regional disparity, which had decreased with neoliberal policy in Europe and America in 1980's, has increased in early development states such as China and Eastern European countries. In opposition to the globalization that has led to increasing regional disparities at a global scale, many scholars argue that grassroots globalization or globalization from below is needed. Based on a pessimistic view on globalization, many maintain that unequal access to information has enlarged the gap between rich and poor. They also argue that the study of the geography of poverty is crucial in oder to solve the problem of bipolization. According to the world system theory, spatial grasp of commodity chains, actors' diversities, flows towards innovation in learning knowledges, and geographical, organizational, and institutional proximities are intertwined. Because these elements make significant influences each other in social networks, the interrelationships among those elements should be carefully considered. A 'geography of knowledge' deals with manufacturing, finance and service, media, cultural, and creative industries. Former researches in economic geography have tended to deal with those industries separately without attempting to make meaningful linkages among discussions on those industries.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2016

This paper is to consider trends and issues of regional research in major sub-fields of human geography in Korea, following the previous one which dealt with contexts and general trends of new regional geography in Korea since the 2000s. They include historical and cultural geography on place and landscape, economic geography on industrial districts or agglomerated regions (i.e. clusters) and urban (and social) geography on urban networks and differentiation. Even though researchers in sub-fields have used different terms and concepts to identify region, they are in common to relate specificities of region to general processes such as (de)modernization, (de)industrialization, and globalization, to understand region as social and discursive constitution as well as substantive reality, and to give more attention to socio-spatial networks and relationality than territoriality of regions. These common points seem to reflect the emerging trend of new regional geography, and to get rid of existing traditional concept of region. It is suggested that major tasks for conceptualization of region in future research are to overcome dichotomy of speciality and generality, of substantive reality and discursive constitution, and of territoriality and relationality, and that important issues for empirical research on region include regional synthesis from new perspectives, uneven regional development as relational process in and between regions, and producing practice for alternative regions.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.522-540
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• 2012

The main aim of the paper is to identify the position or status of Korean economic geography in changing global economic geography by reviewing papers published in Korean geographical journals since the mid-1950s. Since the late 20th century as economic geography has developed significantly with the introduction of new research issues, methodologies, and theory and concepts, economic geography in Korea also has gone through rapid development in terms of both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The paper attempts to analyze trends in Korean economic geography by reviewing agricultural, industrial, commercial geographies, and others since the mid-1950s. The review of economic geography in Korea would be based on four periods classified by research issues and approaches; foundation (~1950s), positioning (1960s and 1970s), jump and rush (1980s and mid-1990s), and transitional period (late 1990s~). Agricultural geography in Korea has decreased due to increases of the interests in industrial geography since the 1980s. In particular, since the late 1990s industrial geography has undergone a significant transition in accordance with the emergence of new theories of institutional perspectives, centering around issues on value chains, innovative cluster, cooperative and competitive networks, foreign direct investment, flexible specialization and venture ecology. Along with this, there has been changes in the interest of commercial geography in Korea from researches on periodical markets, the structure of store formats, and distributions by commodity, to researches on producer services and retailer's locational behaviors and commercial supremacy according to the emergence of new store formats. Since the late 1990s, many researches and discussions associated with the new economic geography began to emerge in Korea. Various research issues are focused on analyzing changes of local, regional and global economic spaces and their processes in relation to institutional perspectives, knowledge and innovation, production chain and innovative networks, industrial clusters and RIS, and geographies of service. Although economic geography in Korea has developed significantly both in quantitative and qualitative perspectives, we pointed out that it has still limited in some specific scope and issues. Therefore, it is likely to imply that its scope and issues should be diversified with new perspectives and approaches.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.394-406
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• 2011

The retailing industry in Korea has developed with new store formats: supermarket, convenient store, discount Store, and super-super market. Also, there are confrontation and conflict between them, becoming a national issue. This study reviews the existing literatures in Korean geography of retailing and consumption and attempts to set forth the future research themes and topics. The review shows that the existing literatures disproportionately focus on location, diffusion, and market area of the new store formats. The future research themes and topics includes the marketplace combined with recreation, donation, environment-friendliness, or social welfare; marketplace as a part of global production and distribution system; expansion of marketplace into homes which are longstanding private space; spatial structure of retailing at various geographical scale.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.655-670
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• 2009

This paper reviews geographical researches on developing countries and suggests relevant future topics. The German language region is especially chosen, because it has a lot of outcomes in the field of geographical researches on developing countries. This paper first reviews the history of geographical researches on developing countries, next analyze various trends of development strategies of developing countries and paradigms of development theories, and finally tries to describe research approaches, significant meanings of the research, and essential topics on the research. The aim of this paper is to verify the geography of developing countries as a practical academic field and to remind the importance of the geography of developing countries, which could contribute to social development and succeed the tradition of regional studies as globalization and international cooperation has continuously intensified.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.873-892
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• 2016

2015 was the seventieth year from the liberation and the division of Korean peninsular. Although the research on the unification has been performed in various interdisciplinary fields since the liberation of Korea, the geographic research on the unification based on the space stays in a minority. It is time to wrap up the literatures and discourses centered on geography for preparing the unification and taking a view of Korean territory of future unification. The starting point is to define the concept of the geography for unification and give careful consideration to the geographic research trends related to the unification that has been achieved since the liberation of Korea. The geography for unification should be understood in the concept of time and space. First of all, the geography for unification can be composed of the stages such as the research for unification, the research for unification impact, the research for united Korea, and the geopolitics of East Asia under the concept of time. It also can be divided into the regions such as Korea, North Korea, borderlands between North Korea-China and North Korea-Russia including South and North Korea, and North East Asia and Pan Pacific Ocean. The geographic research on the unification embracing the concept of time and space can be defined as the geography for unification. The purpose of this study is to elicit the concept and the research field of the geography for unification in the perspective of discourse, investigate the research trends by geographic themes, and suggest the agendas of the geography for future unification.