Kaya, tribal league that was formed sometime before the 3rd century ad in the area west of the Naktong River in southern Korea. The traditional date for the founding of the confederation is given as ad 42, but this is considered to be highly unreliable. The confederation was sometimes known as Karak after its largest single unit.
Because the area was isolated from the rest of the peninsula by Mount Chii in the west and Mount Kaya in the north, the Kaya confederation developed trade largely by sea with the Chinese capital at Lo-yang and with Wae (Japan). The people of Kaya are thought to have been closely related to the tribes that crossed over from Korea to Japan a century or two before this period, and Kaya frequently sought aid from the Japanese in its feuds with its larger Korean neighbours.
Archaeological finds suggest that Kaya developed a culture not much behind that of the neighbouring Silla kingdom. Various earthenwares with patterns quite different from those of Silla have been excavated from the region. The Kaya people invented a unique musical instrument, the kayagum, and produced a well-known player named U Ruk.
Because of its unfavourable conditions—it was surrounded on the Korean peninsula by the two greater powers of Silla and Paekche—the political and social development of Kaya was arrested, and it did not mature into a centralized kingdom. Silla subjugated the eastern half of the kingdom in 532 and the western half in 562.