Busan or Pusan? Korean Revised Romanization Explained

It is Busan, not Pusan, because South Korea switched to a new official system, Revised Romanization, in July 2000.

The city did not move and its Korean name 부산 did not change. Only the way we write it in Latin letters changed. Here is what happened, and why some words ignored the memo.

What is Revised Romanization?

Revised Romanization (RR) is South Korea’s official way to write Hangul in the Latin alphabet. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced it in July 2000, and it is maintained by the National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원). Road signs, subway maps, textbooks and government websites all use it.

The main goals were simple:

• No special marks. No breves (ŏ, ŭ) and no apostrophes, so you can type it on any keyboard.
• One Korean letter, one predictable spelling. ㅓ is always eo, ㅡ is always eu.
• Follow how words actually sound in standard Korean, including many sound changes.

You can paste any Korean word into the Hangul romanizer and it will give you the RR spelling instantly.

What was wrong with McCune-Reischauer?

Before 2000, South Korea used a version of McCune-Reischauer (MR), a system devised in 1937 by two Americans, George McCune and Edwin Reischauer. It was clever and quite accurate for linguists. The problem was everyday use.

MR wrote 부 as pu and 푸 as p’u. The apostrophe marks the strong puff of air in ㅍ. In real life, people dropped the apostrophes, so 부산 and a hypothetical 푸산 looked identical. MR also needed ŏ and ŭ, which most people could not type, so they just wrote o and u. Suddenly 서 and 소 looked the same.

Why B and not P?

Here is the part that confuses English speakers. Korean ㅂ at the start of a word is soft and has almost no puff of air. To English ears it sounds somewhere between “b” and “p.” MR chose p and saved p’ for ㅍ. RR chose b for ㅂ and plain p for ㅍ, so no apostrophe is needed.

The same logic applies to three other pairs:

That is why so many places got new spellings in 2000: Kwangju became Gwangju, Kyŏngju became Gyeongju, and Kimp’o Airport became Gimpo.

Notice the third one: ㄱ is g before a vowel but k at the end of a syllable or before a consonant. That is why 경복궁 has a g at the start of gung and a k in bok. The same goes for ㄷ (d/t) and ㅂ (b/p). ㄹ is r before a vowel and l elsewhere.

RR spells some sound changes the way you hear them. 종로 is written Jongno, not "Jongro," because Koreans actually say [종노]. Read more in why 한국말 sounds like "han-gung-mal".

Then why is it still “kimchi,” not “gimchi”?

Strict RR turns 김치 into gimchi. But “kimchi” was already an English word in dictionaries and on supermarket shelves long before 2000, and the international food standard (Codex Alimentarius) uses “kimchi.” Nobody wanted to rename a famous product overnight.

The same goes for companies. 삼성 in strict RR is Samseong, and 현대 is Hyeondae. But Samsung and Hyundai were registered brand names, and the 2000 rules allow company and organization names to keep the spellings they already use.

Why do Korean names ignore RR?

This is the big exception. The rules say people may keep the romanization of their names that they already use. So a person’s passport spelling is personal choice, not government law.

That is why the most common surname, 이, is almost never written as the strict RR I. People write Lee, Yi or Rhee instead (a capital I alone looks like the English word “I”). 박 is RR Bak, but almost everyone writes Park. 최 is RR Choe, but Choi is more common. You will find the full story in Kim, Lee, Park: why so many Koreans share a few surnames.

Given names are even more personal. A K-pop fan site might write 지우 as Ji-woo, Jiwoo or Jee-woo, while strict RR gives Jiu. All of them are “correct” if that is how the person spells it.

For names, RR also has a special rule: sound changes are not applied between syllables. So 한복남 is Han Boknam, not “Han Bongnam,” even though that is how it sounds. When RR is used for a name, you write the family name first, then a space, then the given name, and a hyphen between the given-name syllables is allowed: Hong Gildong or Hong Gil-dong.

Does North Korea use Revised Romanization?

No. North Korea uses its own system based on McCune-Reischauer. That is why you see Pyongyang (평양) rather than RR Pyeongyang, and why North Korean names often start with Ri instead of Lee: North Korea keeps the original ㄹ sound in 리.

What spelling should you use?

For places, food and general words, use RR. It matches every sign you will see in Seoul, Busan or Jeju, and it is what maps and the subway use. For people and brands, use whatever spelling they use themselves.

If you are writing your own name, there is no single correct answer either. The Korean name generator shows your name in Hangul, and you can run that Hangul through the romanizer to see how a Korean would type it back in Latin letters.

Sources: National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원), Romanization of Korean (2000); McCune & Reischauer, “The Romanization of the Korean Language” (Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1939); Codex Alimentarius standard for kimchi (CODEX STAN 223-2001).

We follow the rules of the National Institute of Korean Language. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we'll fix it.