Kia
South Korean automobile manufacturer
Kia Corporation (Korean: 기아; pronounced [ki.a]) is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer, after its parent company, Hyundai Motor Company, with global sales of over 3.1 million vehicles in 2025. Hyundai Motor Company is Kia’s largest shareholder, holding 35.17% of the company as of 2025; Hyundai Motor Company and related parties together hold 36.99%.
Etymology
According to the company, "Kia" derives from the Hanja 起 (ki, 'to arise') and 亞 (a, which stands for 亞細亞, meaning 'Asia'); it is roughly translated as 'rising from (East) Asia'.
History
Origins and the early expansion
Kia was founded in May 1944 as Kyungsung Precision Industry (경성정밀공업; 京城精密工業), a manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle parts, eventually producing South Korea's first domestic bicycle, the Samchuly, in 1951. In 1952, Kyungsung Precision Industry changed its name to Kia Industries. The company later built Honda-licensed small motorcycles (starting in 1957), as well as Mazda-licensed trucks (1962).
The company opened its first integrated automotive assembly plant, the Sohari Plant, in 1973. Its first modele were the Mazda-based Brisa range of small cars in 1974 and the Brisa II/K303 family car in 1975. It also assembled two French models under license: the Fiat 132 and the Peugeot 604.
“Kia” enters the record as south Korean automobile manufacturer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what South, Korean and automobile can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Kia” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, South, Korean and automobile provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q35349. VIAF identifies the subject as 170846620. The Library of Congress control number is no2011082148. 4 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1944, 1951 and 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kia” 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.