Taekwondo was developed during the 1940s and 1950s by various martial artists by incorporating elements of karate and Chinese martial arts with indigenous Korean martial arts traditions such as Taekkyeon, Subak, and Gwonbeop.^[4] The oldest governing body for taekwondo is the Korea Taekwondo Association (KTA), formed in 1959 through a collaborative effort by representatives from the nine original kwans, or martial arts schools, in Korea.

The main international organizational bodies for taekwondo today are the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), founded by Choi Hong Hi in 1966, and the partnership of the Kukkiwon and World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), founded in 1972 and 1973 respectively by the Korea Taekwondo Association. Gyeorugi ([kj??u?i]), a type of full-contact sparring, has been an Olympic event since 2000. The body known for taekwondo in the Olympics is the World Taekwondo Federation.