South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, and sharing a land border with North Korea. The Republic of Korea has been in existence since 1948 and is subdivided into sixteen administrative divisions, i.e. nine provinces, six city-provinces and the capital city of Seoul. The head of state is the elected president. Christianity and Buddhism are the country’s principal religions. Following Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, the Japanese domination of Korea came to an end and the Korean peninsula was divided into a Northern state (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), which received support from the Soviet Union, and a Southern democratic state that was renamed the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1948. This country module concerns only the Republic of Korea, or South Korea.