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Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel

a proposed tunnel connecting Japan and Korea

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ483151 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel, also known as the Korea–Japan Undersea Tunnel, is a proposed tunnel project to connect Japan with South Korea via an undersea tunnel crossing the Korea Strait that would use the strait islands of Iki and Tsushima, a straight-line distance of approximately 128 kilometers (80 mi) at its shortest.

The proposal, which had been under discussion intermittently since 1917, was followed by more concrete planning during the early 1940s. It was not pursued, however, until after World War II.

In early 2008, the proposal was a subject of renewed discussions by 10 senior Japanese lawmakers, who established a new committee to pursue it. This was followed by a study group from both countries in early 2009, which agreed to form a committee for the creation of specific construction plans. Its head, Huh Moon-do, a former director of South Korea's National Unification Board and a key member of the former Chun Doo-hwan government, said that the tunnel would help regional economics and would "play a key role in pursuing bilateral free trade talks," which are currently stalled.

In 2009, joint studies estimated high construction costs for a Japan-South Korea tunnel and concluded it would not be economically feasible supported by another South Korean study, which in 2011 found proposed tunnels to Japan and China financially unfeasible. The Korea Transport Institute estimated combined construction costs at ₩100 trillion (US$90 billion), with a very low benefit-to-cost ratio.

In 2022, the assassination of Shinzo Abe and subsequent investigation of the Unification Church, which collected donations for the tunnel, led politicians to distance themselves from the project. The Unification Church are strong proponents of the tunnel.

The proposed tunnel would be more than 200 km (120 mi) long and serve a portion of freight traffic, as well as some of the approximately 20,000 people who travel daily between the countries.

Editorial summary

“Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel” enters the record as a proposed tunnel connecting Japan and Korea. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Japan, Korea and Undersea can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1917, 2008, 2009, 2011—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Japan, Korea and Undersea.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Japan, Korea and Undersea provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q483151. Authority coordinates are 34.000, 129.500. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2008, 2009 and 2011.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.