To improve the performance of climate and numerical models, concerns on the land-atmosphere schemes are steadily increased in recent years. For the realistic calculation of land-atmosphere interaction, a land surface information of high quality is strongly required. In this study, a new land cover map over the Korean peninsula was developed using MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data. The seven phenological data set (maximum, minimum, amplitude, average, growing period, growing and shedding rate) derived from 15-day normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were used as a basic input data. The ISOData (Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis), a kind of unsupervised non-hierarchical clustering method, was applied to the seven phenological data set. After the clustering, assignment of land cover type to the each cluster was performed according to the phenological characteristics of each land cover defined by USGS (US. Geological Survey). Most of the Korean peninsula are occupied by deciduous broadleaf forest (46.5%), mixed forest (15.6%), and dryland crop (13%). Whereas, the dominant land cover types are very diverse in South-Korea: evergreen needleleaf forest (29.9%), mixed forest (26.6%), deciduous broadleaf forest (16.2%), irrigated crop (12.6%), and dryland crop (10.7%). The 38 in-situ observation data-base over South-Korea, Environment Geographic Information System and Google-earth are used in the validation of the new land cover map. In general, the new land cover map over the Korean peninsula seems to be better classified compared to the USGS land cover map, especially for the Savanna in the USGS land cover map.