Korean historical geography as a distinct subset of modern geography began with the path-breaking efforts of Do-Yang Roh in the second half of the 1940s. He was joined in 1960 by founding father Dr. Chan Lee who carried with himself the Berkeley geography he learned from Fred Kniffen, his advisor, and Robert West at Louisiana State University. Dr. Lee, the single-most important figure in the development of Korean historical geography, founded in 1988 the Association of Korean Cultural and Historical Geographers in order to pull together those interested in past geographies and geographical change. Korean historical geography took off in the 1980s when large numbers of doctoral theses were produced domestically and abroad and British cross-sectional methodology added. Diversity in research theme and methodology characterizes present-day Korean historical geography.