Korean nationalism can be viewed in two different contexts. One encompasses various movements throughout history to maintain a Korean cultural identity, history, and ethnicity. This ethnic nationalism was mainly forged in opposition to foreign incursion and rule. The second context encompasses how Korean nationalism changed after the partition in 1945. Today, the former tends to predominate.

Righteous armies (Korean: 의병), sometimes translated as irregular armies or militias, were informal civilian militias that appeared several times in Korean history, when the national armies were in need of assistance.