I don't think anybody knows that number, but we do know how many graves Korea has today. It's not as many as you might expect, and I'd guess that's partly because after wars and occupations millions of graves have been violated and lost. But the number of known graves is still huge - 20 million. Most of them look something like what you see above.

Every year, graves take over another 3.6 million square meters of Korea's land. Each burial mound is about 50 square meters. That's 3.5 times as much space as the person required while living (depending on how you define "required").

This isn't a trivial issue, because they can't just park corpses anywhere. Korea has strong Confucian traditions which call for reverence to the dead. It's disrespectful to bury your parents or grandparents in a nondescript plot somewhere far away from the family home. It's shameful (literally) to neglect burial mounds - they have to be kept mowed and nicely landscaped. Also, a surprising number of Koreans still have a vague (sometimes not so vague) fear of their ancestors' ghosts. So if the family still has the old plot, there's no question about where the burials will be.

But Korea is a more mobile society these days. Land prices are skyrocketing, too, so more and more Koreans live farther and farther from their families (living and dead). This means, by the way, that on the major Korean holidays you'll have a real challenge to get anywhere. The highways will be hopelessly clogged. Buses, trains, and even airlines will be booked weeks or months in advance. On the holidays, everyone goes home to pay respects to relatives.

You can imagine how much Koreans want to avoid this headache - but family ties and social pressure won't allow that. One way around this dilemma is - get ready - virtual rituals. There are actually services which will (for a fee, of course) aim a video camera at your ancestors' graves, so you can do your rituals without ever leaving your apartment in Seoul. Where else but in Korea?

Finally, though, Koreans are starting to realize that they're eventually going to run out of room to bury people. In 2000, the Korean government began funding public crematories. By 2005, over half the dead in Korea were cremated instead of being buried. (In 1970, it was about 10 percent.)

But that number is being driven by city dwellers. In the more rural areas, burial is still the top choice. Rich or poor, families build their burial mounds wherever they can. This one is located behind the Green soju distillery in Kangnung (Gangneung). Who knows, maybe one of the distillery's founders is buried there.