Joseon
Joseon (Revised Romanization of Korean (RR); Chosŏn (McCune-Reischauer romanization (MR)); 조선 (朝鮮) in Korean; Chosen (朝鮮) in Japanese) is a name for Korea, as used in the following cases:
- As part of the name of several ancient kingdoms (including Gojoseon, Gija Joseon, and Wiman Joseon);
- During most of the Joseon Dynasty, when the country's full official name was Daejoseonguk (대조선국; 大朝鮮國; "Great Joseon Nation"), a name that is almost never used today;
- During the Japanese Colonial Period; and
- Today in North Korea.
The Sino-Korean characters (Hanja) that make up the name (朝鮮) are often translated into English as "morning calm," hence Korea's English nickname, "The land of the morning calm." However, the Hanja are phonetic and do not represent "morning" or "calm" as it is read in Chinese. 朝 can only mean "morning" when read as zhāo in Chinese, but in the context of Joseon, 朝 is always read as cháo, which means "tide" or "court". Also, 鮮 (xiān in Chinese, seon in Korean) never means "calm", but only means "fresh (food)" or "brightly coloured".
