• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.355-376
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• 2007

The aim of this study is to examine the changes of approach methods of research framework in the history of Korean economic geography during the last fifty years($1956{\sim}2005$). The five factors that have influenced Korean economic geography are Korean geography, European, American, and Japanese geography, fundamental theories of economics and business administration, regional problems, and culture. The study of Korean economic geography can be divided into four periods: 'period of cradle of economic geography($1956{\sim}1962$)', 'period of establishment of economic geography(1963$\sim$later 1970s)', 'period of leap of economic geography(the former half of 1980s$\sim$the former half of 1990s)', and 'period of transition of economic geography (since later 1990s)'. And research framework of Korean economic geography has changed from the regional structure theory in 'period of leap' to the spatial system of economies and network theory in 'period of transition'. Spatial system of economies and network theory consists of spatial system of world economies, spatial system of national economies, spatial system of regional economies, spatial network of enterprise economies, and spatial network of information economies.

• 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 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.15 no.4
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• pp.457-463
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• 2012

This study examines the epistemological approach of the economic geography and the approach in the ontology of geography which has been studied based on the region, and thereby aims at the systematization of economic geography. Since 1956, Korean economic geography study has been conducted under the development of studies in developed countries without discussing the uniqueness of the study or the systematization of the research approaches. As a result, the systematization is built after the economic geography is divided into neoclassical economy, geographical political economy, regional structure of the national economy, and local autonomous entity economy on a axis of epistemology and ontology for the systematization of approaches. We should pursue the intellectual change adding the major economic phenomena theories such as the world-system perspective, the regulation theory, network theory, and the institutionalism etc. into the systematization of the economic geography.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.241-262
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to examine the changes of institution, quantity and approach methods of research results in the history of Korean economic geography during the last fifty-five years (1956-2010) and to offer the preparations for the future research. The history Korean economic geography can be divided into four periods: 'period of cradle' (1956-1962), 'period of establishment' (1963-later 1970s)', 'period of leap (the former half of 1980s-the former half of 1990s)', and 'period of transition (since later 1990s)'. Many departments of geography education and geography have been founded in the 'period of establishment' and 'period of leap'. Among the total research matters (1,621), 44.4 percent of research results have been made in 2000s and the most researched field was that of manufacturing geography, which occupied 27.7 percent. In the approach methods, about two-thirds of the results are the empirical inductive approach and the research frameworks method which clarified the regional structures and theory of spatial system occupied each about 40 percent. In the future, each research field of Korean economic geography is expected to take more serious view of nature environment, thorough regional survey, and preference of economy-society-culture-knowledge in the research framework of spatial network theory.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.216-232
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• 2008

This paper aim to review the extent of Park Je-Ga's geographical interest and knowledge and where he intended to make good use of them through Bukhakui(北學議). In particular, it was classified and interpreted as the contents related to agricultural, industrial and commercial geography focusing on the contents of the economic geography. As for the contents related to agricultural geography, it suggests minutely and precisely the necessity and concrete methodology for farmland, seeding, fertilization, breeding of cattle, sericulture and fruits. As for the contents related to industrial geography, it lays emphasis on the pursuit of the modernization of ours by means of accepting high-tech, industrial engineering and knowledge from Western scholars who were staying in Beijing. As for the contents related to commercial geography, it puts emphasis on the conversion of idle labor capacity of the nobility to practical production capacity, the pursuit of economic vitalization by opening land transportation through wheels and the trade by sea with neighboring countries such as Qing, Japan, Ryukyu, Vietnam and so on. It can be known through this study that Park Je-Ga was a realist who made an effort to raise the economic power of the region and the country with using his endeavor of economic geographical interest and knowledge. His economic geographical interest and knowledge were connected directly with practical use. If his economic geographical knowledge and way of thinking had been accepted successfully at that time, the economic power in the latter half of the Joseon dynasty could have leaped to a considerable degree.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.115-134
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• 1997

We now live in the new era of globalization which implies the functional integration or increase of inter-dependency between internationally dispersed economic activities. As globalization impacts our various activities and daily lives, social sciences, including, geography, attempt to approach social phenomena from a global perspective. From this point of view. new regional geography, which has been articulated in recent social theory since the 1980s, also must adjust to these new world realities. This paper aims to search for a suitable methodology or approach to area study or regional geography in the era of globalization and to suggest the field of area study that Korean geographers should be concerned with in the future. This paper has reviewed the existing various methodologies of regional geography such as the ecological approach, the landscape approach. the areal differentiation approach, the system approach, the structuration theory, the spatial division of labour, and the world-system, which have deviced in the traditional and new regional geography. Peter Taylor's regional geography of world systems among them has an appropriate rationale of area study in the globalization era, because world-systems theory explains well globalization. However the regional geography of world-systems must be revised to become more suitable to the area-study approach in the globalization era. Firstly, the regional geography of world-systems explains that regions(historical regions) are made by general mechanisms of the capitalist world-economy that operate through social, economic, and political agents within regions such as individuals, households, social classes, economic enterprises, states, political movements, and many other organizations. But these mechanisms can also act through other regional agents of geographical location, natural conditions, and cultural characteristics. Therefore, the generating process of regions needs to be explained by locational, natural, and cultural elements in addition to social, economic, and political elements within regions. Secondly, Taylor's world-systems approach does not express composite characteristics of regions, because it focuses on the economic characteristics or position of regions within the world-economy. Regions incorporated into world-economy systems are not only changed economically, but also changed spatially, socially, culturally, and politically. Hence the world-systems approach must try to analyze these composite characteristics and their change of regions. Thirdly, The world-system approach proposed that the geography of regions within world-systems could be divided and analyzed as three regional types at the geographical scale such as international regions, state regions, and intra-state regions. However such a regionalization is usually not identified distinctly, because the geographical range of regions in world-systems shaped by economic boundaries of the general mechanisms of the world-economy is fluid and also occasionally overlaps with other political regions. Hence I propose that the world-systems approach should choose political boundaries of states and local autonomies in addition to economic boundaries for objective regionalization and systematic areal study. The revised regional geography of world-systems that I have suggested in this paper can be more effectively and properly applied to regional geography or area study in the globalization era. Globalization intensifies competition between states and also between local autonomies in the world. Therefore we must make efforts to study such areas or regions through the revised regional geography of world-system.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.29-51
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• 2021

The present research explores the tendency of the items that require Place Location Knowledge (PLK) of the Korean Geography subject in the College Scholastic Ability Test. The major findings are as follows. First, the geographical regions of the items are spatially skewed, especially in the Yeongnam regions, which are tested more frequently compared to the others. Second, the fact-based items more concern with regionality such as geographic indication system and regional festivals. Third, the concept-based items can be divided into physical geography and human geography and there were four items related to economic geography. Fourth, students tend to find it challenging in the items asking PLK. The difficulty varies according to the type of items. The students find concept-based items which require high-order thinking more challenging. There is also differences identified between contents. For example, the section of physical geography, especially climatology-related, were considered the most challenging followed by those of economic geography. Finally, the differences in the rate of correct answer are associated with the scale of the regions covered in the items and students experienced more difficulty in the items asking more precise scale.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.6 s.117
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• pp.639-656
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• 2006

The purposes of this paper are to examine the mechanism of the new economic spaces and to suggest directions of geographical research in the knowledge-based information society. It introduces the background of the formation of the new economic spaces and examines network, embeddedness, and agglomeration and dispersion as mechanisms of the new economic spaces. Based on the result of case studies of Kangnam area, the most active innovation region in Korea, and of Sunchang, one of the backward regions in Korea, the paper points out that new economic spaces are now developing even in the peripheral areas. Considering the result of theoretical discussions and case studies, the paper suggests three directions for future geographical research such as research from a integrative viewpoint, development of new methodologies of geographical research, and policy directed research in geography.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.255-267
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• 1996

The so-called Cultural and Historical Geography, sometimes called even as the Historical and Cultural Geography, has been defined as an interdiscipline that encompasses several disciplines in Korea. Scholars with various academic background have participated in the academic activity of the Association of Korean Cultural and Historical Geographers that was organized in the late 1980s. The academic majors of these participants are cultural geography, historical geography, history of geography, urban geography rural geography, economic geography, social and economic history anthropology, landscape architecture, and so on. It was in the 1960s that articles about the Cultural and Historical Geography appeared for the first time in the major academic journals in Korea. The pioneers of publishing these articles in the 1960s continued to conduct their research, while training students majoring in the Cultural and Historical Geography in the 1970s. All of these pioneers and their students were very active in the formation of identity vrith the Cultural and Historical Geography In the 1980s. Cultural and Historical Geography in Korea took a great leap forward both in quantity and in quality. The number of articles in the journal increased substantially, and the range of research theme and methodology extended in a great deal. It was also in the late 1980s that the Association of Korean Cultural and Historical Geographers was organized in Seoul, Korea, and this association began to publish a professional journal named Cultural and Historical Geography once a year. In the 1990s, single-authored books dealing with Korean Cultural and Historcial Geography began to appear in public as textbooks or research monographs. These books are expected to speed up the spread of Cultural and Historical Geography in Korea. If it continues to grow further both in quantity and in quality as it has been, Cultural and Historical Geography in Korea will be able to stand as an independent academic field in the future. Until then, however, it cannot but avoid its mission to contribute to an integrated development of human geography in Korea. It has already gained not only its own merit in the humanistic perspective but also its own strength in its synthetic understanding.