Most of the world's major nations of the time, plus a number of other nations, took part in the war. A world war is only technically defined as a war involving a majority of the world's major nations, instead of the more common, but wrong definition, of a war fought all over the world.

The Korean war was pretty isolated compared to the world wars. Shore Canada and Britten etc sent troops but were they "involved". They were there supporting the south while other countries supported the north.

I think if you apply that definition to other wars, as you did to Korea, then many more were world wars most, notably the Napoleonic wars.

The real reason? Because it didn't take place in Europe ...

OK, that's cynical - but it has some impact. It was an attempt to justify the use of the UN in "police actions" and the stagnation of the front, without eventual breakout and battlefield victory, which kept it from being classed as a World War.

How many different countries did it happen in?

I already said in the OP guys what a world war is.

Why are other ealier wars not counted as world wars? Because the term was only invented a few years prior to the out break of the First World War, that's why.

Delvo wrote:How many different countries did it happen in?

Probably 3.

Why isn't WW II considered to have started in 1931? Why aren't WW I and WW II considered to be essentially the same war just with a 20 year armistice?

virphen wrote:Why isn't WW II considered to have started in 1931? Why aren't WW I and WW II considered to be essentially the same war just with a 20 year armistice?

Why would WW2 start in 1931?

Rome Existed wrote:I already said in the OP guys what a world war is.

Why are other ealier wars not counted as world wars? Because the term was only invented a few years prior to the out break of the First World War, that's why.

Well here's the thing I will debate your definition.

A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters, and last for multiple years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war
This is a map of the countries involved in World War 1

This is a map of the countries involved in World War 2

Compare this to the number of countries involved in Korea And World War 1&2 are just on a different scale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

Further your argument that you can't refer to something retroactively is just a fallacy. Most of the names given during the war (The Great War,The Kaiser's War, The War of the Nations, The War in Europe, or The European War.) didn't last. It was suggested that the war would become a world war in 1914 but it wasn't till 1920 that the term the first world war was published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

And I would direct you to the Oxford English Dictionary which doesn't mention it needing to span the world at all.

And renaming a war fought just a year or so earlier is different to renaming wars that were fought centuries earlier, wouldn't you say?

Unfortunately I do not have an OED available to me but merriam webster Defines the term as follows.

a war engaged in by all or most of the principal nations of the world; especially capitalized both Ws : either of two such wars of the first half of the 20th century

The point remains quibbling over the dictionary definitions is literally just semantics.
Going off it's first usage,

If through fear of entangling alliances the United States should return the Philippines to Spain, Mr. Page asserted that the predatory nations would swoop down upon them and a world war would result. ["New York Times," Dec. 16, 1898]

The encyclopedia reference from before and common vernacular Your definition is in question if it came from the OED or any other material.

Rome Existed wrote:

virphen wrote:Why isn't WW II considered to have started in 1931? Why aren't WW I and WW II considered to be essentially the same war just with a 20 year armistice?

Why would WW2 start in 1931?

Japan invading Manchuria is just as logical a marker as the invasion of Poland.

virphen wrote:

Rome Existed wrote:

virphen wrote:Why isn't WW II considered to have started in 1931? Why aren't WW I and WW II considered to be essentially the same war just with a 20 year armistice?

Why would WW2 start in 1931?

Japan invading Manchuria is just as logical a marker as the invasion of Poland.

The invasion of Poland involved the major nations of Germany, UK, France and then the USSR.

The invasion of Manchuria involved the major nation of Japan and that's it.

One could also argue it wasn't a world war till 1941 too.

That's the thing with arbitrary definitions, they are arbitrary.

Rome Existed wrote:

virphen wrote:

Rome Existed wrote:

Why would WW2 start in 1931?

Japan invading Manchuria is just as logical a marker as the invasion of Poland.

The invasion of Poland involved the major nations of Germany, UK, France and then the USSR.

The invasion of Manchuria involved the major nation of Japan and that's it.

But it's the starting point of an unbroken period of military conflict. It's just as good a starting point as any other, the September 1939 start date is just a Euro-centric convention.

I'm pretty sure they were called world wars because the theater of combat took place across many nations and not just because of the number of nations involved.

The Korean war combat theater was isolated to just Korea.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:The Korean war combat theater was isolated to just Korea.

Which also puts it on a completely different level in terms of number and sizes of battles, miles of combat lines/front, miles of supply lines in the "theater", amounts of resources used, people fighting...

Going by troops WWI had in descending order:
German 19.43%
Russian 17.59%
UK 12.96%
France 12.70%
Austria 11.44%
Italy 7.47%
USA 6.95%
Ottoman 4.40%
Romania 1.81%
Bulgaria 1.76%
Japan 1.17%
Serbia 1.04%

Going by troops Korea had in descending order:
China 38.28%
South Korea 20.29%
USA 19.84%
North Korea 10.75%
UK 2.60%
Canada 1.11%
USSR 1.07%
Austria 0.70%
Philippines 0.31%
Turkey 0.23%
Netherlands 0.16%
France 0.14%
Greece 0.09%

In short WWI had a lot of countries going to war, Korea had North, south Korea, china, and the USA going to war. Then a number of other countries supporting with troops.

Huh? Austria was occupied territory before 1955, and didn't have an army. Was that, rather, Australia?

Berthold wrote:Huh? Austria was occupied territory before 1955, and didn't have an army. Was that, rather, Australia?

Yes Australia is correct. Copy paste error that's all.