Taekwondo is the Korean national sport and martial art, and is also one of the world's most commonly practiced sports. In the Korean language, Tae (Hanja) means "kick or destroy with the foot", Gwon (Hanja) means "punch or smash with the hand or fist", and Do (Hanja) means "way or art". Hence, Taekwondo is taken to mean "the way of the foot and the fist."

Taekwondo is popular throughout the world, and the World Taekwondo Federation's form of Taekwondo is currently an Olympic sport. While some forms of Taekwondo have received criticism for not teaching enough street-effective techniques, this has more to do with commercialization, rather than with any inherent flaw in the art itself: one of the reasons Taekwondo is so popular is because of its effectiveness as a form of self-defence.