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영어

National parks are designated and managed for the purpose of preserving natural ecosystems, nature and cultural scenery, and promoting sustainable utilization in Korea. Since we designated Jirisan as the first Korean national park in 1967, we have now designated and managed 22 national parks. Because these national parks are the core protected areas of the nation and the ecological recreation center for the people, the interests of researchers related to national parks and citizens have steadily increased over the last 50 years. Especially, various natural science researches and social studies on national parks have been conducted with the launch of the Korea National Park Service in 1987, which is dedicated to national park management. However, we still lack research on national park research trends in Korea in spite of the increase in scientific research and public interest. It is important to know who and what institutes are leading national parks research, what research topics have been conducted, what kinds of researches are important in each national park, and how these researches relate to national park management policies. We propose a study to review the national parks related studies that have been carried out so far and identify the research trends. In the pilot study, we collected about 700 research papers on national parks published between 2002 and 2016 through the Korea Citation Index of Korean journals. We are analyzing the number of papers published, research institutes and research topics related to national parks. Analysis of these national park research trends will be necessary for efficient national park management and policy making for future generations.