Rotary’s History in Korea

The first Rotary club in Korea was chartered in Seoul on 10 November 1927. Since then, Rotary members in Korea have maintained their commitment to fellowship, service, and leadership through difficult times — growing membership, leading our organization, offering hospitality to the Rotary world, and showing themselves to be people of action.

Early years

Rotary members expressed interest in starting a club in Korea as early as 1922, but action was deferred while Rotary focused on expanding in countries that already had clubs.

The idea was reignited in 1926 when two clubs in the United States contacted Rotary leaders about Americans living in Korea who could organize a club. A club in the state of Kansas suggested an honorary member who was doing missionary work for the Presbyterian church. From Iowa came the recommendation of a man who was working for the YMCA.

James Davidson, who organized the first Rotary clubs in Australia and New Zealand, and other leaders who were guiding Rotary’s efforts to establish clubs in new countries hesitated to change course quickly. They also had reservations about giving this responsibility to people with little Rotary experience.

Instead, work began in earnest in 1927, when members of the Rotary Club of Tokyo, Japan, advocated founding a club in Seoul. Hachisaburo Hirao of the Rotary Club of Osaka, Rotary’s special commissioner for Japan, oversaw its organization. At the time, Korea was under Japanese rule, and the new club included both Japanese and Korean members.

The Seoul club received visitors from near and far. It joyfully reported an occasion in 1931 when Rotarians from the United States attended a club meeting when their cruise ship docked nearby at Incheon. The club also hosted annual family outings; 1934’s took place on the grounds of the Chosun Beer Company, where guests hunted for chestnuts and enjoyed food from different cultures.

The Rotary Club of Seoul was the only club in Korea until Rotary chartered clubs in Busan in May 1935, Pyongyang in July 1937, and Daegu in June1938. This growth was short-lived. All clubs in Korea disbanded in 1940 as Japan adopted a strong nationalist stance opposed to Westernization and entered World War II. The clubs’ membership in RI officially ended in December of that year.

Rotary returns to Korea

The Rotary Club of Seoul was formally re-established on 15 March 1949 with 25 members. When Seoul was occupied by the North Korean Army in 1950, club members were among those forced to flee. Some went to Busan, about 325 km (200 miles) southeast of Seoul, where they began helping other refugees and holding meetings that echoed their former Rotary club meetings. As a result of their efforts to make connections and serve the community, the Rotary Club of Busan was officially re-established on 3 January 1952.

In January 1961, Rotary International placed the 10 clubs in the country in an administrative group known as a Rotary district. Although it was unusual for a district to have so few clubs, Rotary leaders believed that the organization’s growth in Korea would be more successful using this approach than it would if clubs were grouped with clubs in other Asian countries.

Indeed, by Rotary’s centennial in 2005, Korea boasted more than 1,200 Rotary clubs and 48,900 members. Twenty years later, it had more than 1,600 Rotary clubs and 64,000 members.

Rotary presidents

It is a great honor to be elected to lead Rotary International, and members from Korea have twice been selected to serve as president of the global organization.

Dong Kurn “D.K.” Lee of the Rotary Club of Seoul Hangang was president in 2008-09. Reflecting at the start of his term on Rotary’s growth in Korea, he noted that the country was very poor during and after the Korean War of 1950-53. “Many international organizations and governments helped build the economy back up. Now our economy is booming, and all Koreans want to give back some of what was given.”

SangKoo Yun of the Rotary Club of Sae Hanyang, Seoul, was chosen to serve as president for 2026-27. Yun, a consummate Rotary leader and businessman, died in September 2025 before taking office.

Host to the Rotary world

Building on the tradition begun by the first club in Seoul, Korean members continue to host visitors from around the world. They welcome guests, participate in Rotary Youth Exchange, and host large-scale events.

Rotary’s 1979 Asia Regional Conference in Seoul drew nearly three times more participants than any other regional Rotary conference at the time. The opening ceremony had to be split into two sessions because the audience was so large. James L. Bomar Jr., the 1979-80 RI president, called the occasion “a significant tribute, providing great visibility to the growth of Rotary” in Asia and Korea.

The 1989 Rotary International Convention was held at Olympic Park in Seoul, the site of the 1988 Summer Olympics. Prime Minister Kang Young-hoon gave the welcome address. At the time, it was the second-largest convention in Rotary history, with 38,000 participants. The 2016 convention in Seoul attracted 44,600 participants, becoming the new second-largest convention.

People of action

Korean members have shown themselves to be people of action over the decades. In a country that once primarily benefitted from service projects initiated by clubs in other countries, today’s Rotary members are proud to lead positive change in their own country and beyond.

In 1963, nearly all 600 Rotary members in Korea led a reforestation effort in the mountainous region west of Seoul. The area was heavily deforested during World War II when trees were used for fuel because of electricity and coal shortages, and more were damaged during the Korean War. The project protected the few trees that remained and planted more, in hopes that the seedlings would “grow as high as the sky.”

Environmental concerns were again a priority in 2008, when members in Korea and Mongolia used a grant from The Rotary Foundation to counter desertification and erosion in the Gobi Desert. People involved in the multiyear initiative planted trees, built infrastructure, and worked with farmers to find solutions to overgrazing by livestock.

In 1989, members of the Rotary Club of Seoul purchased winter clothes, shoes, and medicine to support Vietnamese refugees in Busan. One club member donated new clothing from his textile company. The project helped almost 300 refugees endure the winter in a climate they were unaccustomed to.

Rotary clubs in South Korea have long supported North Korean defectors by building schools, offering scholarships, and providing health screenings. The Rotary Club of Ulsan Freedom, started by immigrants in 2016, combines personal experience and the Rotary network to help immigrants from the North who don’t have family or friends nearby adapt to an unfamiliar economic system and culture.

Members also seek to help people outside Korea. The Rotary Club of Yeongju Moran and District 3630 in Korea collaborate with U.S. Rotary members on a job training program near Chicago, Illinois, USA, for Korean, Asian American, and Pacific Islander people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

Rotary Korea, one of Rotary’s official regional magazines, has featured Rotary members’ work in Korea since 1963.

— November 2025