Asia1/Shamir that has been recommended by World Reference Laboratory for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is used as a vaccine strain, and is being prepared in many countries including Korea. Although it is assumed that vaccine strain Asia1/Shamir has a wide antigenicity, sufficient molecular biological analysis has not been accomplished yet. Complete genome sequence analysis showed that the region with the most severe variations was 1D region of structural protein-coding sequence; particularly amino acid 141~157 residues in 1D region RGD sites for binding to susceptible cells. In addition, five amino acids in 1D region were identified as characteristic sites that are different from other known Asia1 viruses. Asia1/Shamir strain was shown to be genetically similar to group VI that had occurred in the Middle East, but showed low level of genetic similarity to the group V viruses that had occurred in the Southeast Asia and China. It is considered that, if these viruses, group I and II including group V are introduced into Korea, care would be paid in case of inoculating the vaccine strain Shamir available in Korea.