Korean National Sports Festival

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Hangul	전국 체육 대회
Hanja	全國體育大會
Revised Romanization	Jeon-guk Cheyuk Daehoe
McCune-Reischauer	Chŏn'guk Ch'eyuk Taehoe

The Korean National Sports Festival is an annual sports competition held in South Korea.

For a full week each October, about 20,000 athletes representing 16 cities and provinces throughout the country compete in about 40 separate sports. The site rotates among the major cities, including Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju and Incheon. The 2005 festival was held in Ulsan.

Competitions are held in High School, College, and Regular Divisions.

[edit] History

The current annual numbering originates from the 1920 All-Korea Baseball Series and the formation of the Korean Sports Festival (조선체육회). The Japanese colonial government held a multi-sport competition in 1925, but the Korean Sports Festival first became a national multi-sport competition in 1934, with baseball, soccer, tennis, track and field, and basketball.

In 1938, the Korean Sports Festival was forcibly dissolved by the colonial government. The festival, numbered 26th, resumed upon the 1945 liberation of Korea. With the establishment of South Korea in 1948, the event was renamed the "National Sports Festival," and individual competition was changed to competition among cities and provinces. The festival was cancelled in 1951, during the Korean War.