A private golf course in the country's southeast region has been chosen as the new site for an advanced US missile defense system to be deployed by the end of next year to help cope with threats by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, military officials in Seoul said on Friday.

The Republic of Korea's Defense Ministry in July originally picked a nearby artillery base in the rural farming town of Seongju as the site for Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.

But Seongju residents fiercely protested the plan, raising fears over potential health hazards they believe the system's powerful radar might cause.