Korean is spoken by about 80 million people, almost evenly split between North and South Korea, plus a Korean-American population of around 1.1 million centred on Los Angeles (Koreatown), New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Northern Virginia. Translation work splits between two distinct flows: K-Pop, gaming, and Samsung-and-LG-driven business content on one side, and the Korean family register (gajokgwangyejeungmyeongseo), passports, and church documents needed for USCIS on the other. Korean uses Hangul, an alphabet designed in the 15th century — efficient, phonetic, and unrelated to Chinese characters despite Korean's earlier history of using them.