South Korea is a major center of aquaculture production, and the world's third largest producer of farmed algae as of 2020.[2]
South Korea occupies the southern portion of the Korean peninsula. The total land mass of the country is 98,480 km2 but only 20% consists of arable land and thus the population is concentrated around the coast.[3][4] The Korean Peninsula is surrounded by the East, West and South Seas, a coastline that extends for about 2,413 km. Endowed with an abundance of fisheries resources, Koreans have developed a distinct seafood culture with annual per capita seafood consumption of 48.1 kg in 2005.[3]
Years of capturing wild fish combined with improved fishing technology have led to a continuous decrease in capture production in South Korea in recent years, and consequently led to a greater attention to aquaculture to meet the increasing demand for aquatic products.
Extensive aquaculture has been practiced in Korea for several hundred years, with seaweed farming beginning in the 1600s, but modern intensive aquaculture (mainly for seaweed and shellfish) did not emerge until the 1960s.[5][6] However, total annual aquaculture production was less than 100,000 tonnes in this period. Aquaculture production increased from 147,000 tonnes in 1971, to over 1.2 million tonnes in 2006, and 2.3 million tonnes by 2017.[3][7]