Korean diaspora in the context of "March First Movement"

The Korean independence movement was a series of diplomatic and militant efforts to liberate Korea from Japanese rule. The movement began around the late 19th or early 20th century, and ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. As independence activism on the peninsula was largely suppressed by Japan, many significant efforts were conducted abroad by the Korean diaspora, as well as by a number of sympathetic non-Koreans.

In the mid-19th century, Japan and China were forced out of their policies of isolationism by the West. Japan then proceeded to rapidly modernize, forcefully open Korea, and establish its own hegemony over the peninsula. Eventually, it formally annexed Korea in 1910. The 1919 March First Movement protests are widely seen as a significant catalyst for the international independence movement, although domestically the protests were violently suppressed. In the aftermath of the protests, thousands of Korean independence activists fled abroad, mostly to China. In April 1919, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (KPG) was founded as a self-proclaimed government in exile.

Koreans are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. The majority of Koreans live in the two Korean sovereign states of North and South Korea, which are collectively referred to as Korea. As of 2021, an estimated 7.3 million ethnic Koreans resided outside of Korea. Koreans are also an officially recognised ethnic minority in other several Continental and East Asian countries, including China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan. Outside of Continental and East Asia, sizeable Korean communities have formed in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. It is known as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, Hangul internationally, and Hangeul in South Korea. The script's original name was Hunminjeongeum.

Before Hangul's creation, Korea had been using Hanja (Chinese characters) since antiquity. As Hanja was poorly suited for representing the Korean language, and because its difficulty contributed to high illiteracy, Joseon king Sejong the Great (r. 1418–1450) moved to create Hangul. The script was announced around late 1443 to early 1444 and officially published in 1446 via the text Hunminjeongeum and its companion commentary Hunminjeongeum Haerye. While Hangul saw gradual adoption among both the elite and commoners, it was looked down upon by the elite for centuries. It only began to receive societal acceptance in the late 19th century. It is now the predominant script for Korean in both Koreas and among the Korean diaspora. It is also used to write the Jeju language, and to a limited degree, the Cia-Cia language of Indonesia.

The Yukjin dialect (Yukjin Korean: 뉴웁말; Hanja: 六鎭말; RR: Nyuummal) is a variety of Korean or a separate Koreanic language spoken in the historic Yukjin region of northeastern Korea, south of the Tumen River. Its phonology and lexicon are unusually conservative, preserving many Middle Korean forms. Thus, Alexander Vovin classified it as a distinct language.

Yukjin speakers currently live not only in the Tumen River homeland, now part of North Korea, but also in the Korean diaspora in Northeast China and Central Asia that formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The dialect is under pressure from the Gyeonggi ("Seoul") dialect, the prestige dialect, as well as local Chinese and Central Asian languages.

Koreans in Germany numbered 80,000 individuals as of 2009, according to the statistics of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Though they are now only the 14th-largest Korean diaspora community worldwide, they remain the second-largest in Western Europe, behind the rapidly growing community of British Koreans. As of 2010, Germany has been hosting the second-largest number of Koreans residing in Western Europe, if one excludes Korean sojourners (students and general sojourners).

The largest community of Koreans is situated in the Frankfurt-Rhine Main Area, with 5,300 residents. This area also contains German and European headquarters of large Korean companies such as Kia Motors, Hyundai, Samsung Electronics, LG International, SK Group, Nexen Tire.

Koreans in France numbered 29,367 individuals as of 2014, making them the 3rd-largest Korean diaspora community in Western Europe, according to South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Korean Americans (Korean: 한국계 미국인) are Americans of full or partial Korean ethnic descent. While the broader term Overseas Korean in America (미주한인/재미교포/재미한인) may refer to all ethnic Koreans residing in the United States, the specific designation of Korean American implies the holding of American citizenship.

As of 2022, there are 1.5–1.8 million Americans of Korean descent, of whom roughly 1.04 million were born abroad, accounting for 8% of all Asian Americans and 0.5% of the total U.S. population. However, prominent scholars and Korean associations claim that the Korean American population exceeds 2.5–3 million, which would make it the largest community Overseas Koreans in the world, ahead of China's 2.1 million.