28/05/2021 Seoul -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Seoul
Seoul, Korean Sŏul, formally Sŏul-t’ŭkpyŏlsi (“Special City of Seoul”), city and capital of
South Korea (the Republic of Korea). It is located on the Han River (Han-gang) in the
northwestern part of the country, with the city centre some 37 miles (60 km) inland from the
Yellow Sea (west). Seoul is the cultural, economic, and political centre of South Korea.

Except for a brief interregnum (1399–1405), Seoul was

the capital of Korea from 1394 until the formal division
of the country in 1948. The name itself has come to mean
“capital” in the Korean language. The city was popularly
called Seoul in Korean during both the Chosŏn (Yi)
zoom_in
Seoul: Ch'anggyŏng Palace dynasty (1392–1910) and the period of Japanese rule
Ch'anggyŏng (Changgyeong) Palace,
(1910–45), although the official names in those periods
with downtown Seoul in the
background. were Hansŏng (Hanseong) and Kyŏngsŏng
© Leung Cho Pan/Dreamstime.com
(Gyeongseong), respectively. The city was also popularly
and, during most of the 14th century, officially known as Hanyang. Seoul became the official
name of the city only with the founding of South Korea in 1948. Area 234 square miles (605
square km). Pop. (2010) 9,794,304.

Landscape
City site

The area on the Han River that is now occupied by Seoul has been inhabited by humans for
thousands of years, and it acquired strategic importance to the various kingdoms that
controlled the Korean peninsula and grew to become a city during the early historic period.
Seoul was founded as the capital of a unified nation in 1394 by Gen. Yi Sŏng-gye, the founder
of the Chosŏn dynasty. The site was a militarily defensible natural redoubt that was also an
especially suitable site for a capital city, lying at the centre of the peninsula and adjoining the
navigable Han River, one of the peninsula’s major rivers flowing into the Yellow Sea. The
contact afforded by this riverine site with both inland waterways and coastal sea routes was

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particularly important to Yi because these were the routes by which grain, taxes, and goods
were transported. In addition to the practical advantages, the site was well situated according
to p’ungsujirisŏl, the traditional belief in geomancy. The district chosen by Yi remains, more
than 600 years later, the centre of Seoul. It is located immediately north of the Han River in the
lowland of a topographic basin surrounded by low hills of about 1,000 feet (300 metres) in
height. The natural defensive advantages of the basin were reinforced two years after the city’s
founding by the construction of an 11-mile (18-km) wall along the ridges of the surrounding
hills.

Today the remains of the fortifications are a popular

attraction. Likewise, the Ch’ŏnggye Stream—a small
tributary of the Han that drains the old city centre but
was covered over by streets and expressways in the mid-
20th century—has been uncovered and restored; once a
zoom_in
Kyŏngbok Palace, Seoul. focus of everyday activities for many residents, it is now
© Pioneron/Fotolia
a river park and a tourist attraction. The original city
district served to contain most of the city’s growth until
the early 20th century. Although the population had grown to approximately 100,000 by the
census of 1429, it had risen to only about 250,000 by the time of the Japanese annexation in
1910, almost five centuries later. The modernization program initiated by the Japanese began
the first of several cycles of growth during the 20th century that extended the city limits by
successive stages, so that they now contain both banks of the Han River, as well as the banks
of several tributary rivers.

The city’s boundaries now form a ragged oval about 8 to 12 miles (13 to 20 km) distant from
the original site, except to the northwest, where they are indented to approximately half that
distance; that northwestern edge lies only about 25 miles (40 km) southeast of the
demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea. Seoul has grown rapidly since the
Korean War (1950–53). The present boundary of Seoul is largely that established in 1963 and
encompasses an area about twice what it was in 1948. Suburbs have sprung up in the rural

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areas surrounding the city, and such satellite cities as Sŏngnam (Seongnam), Suwŏn (Suweon),
and Inch’ŏn (Incheon) have undergone considerable expansion as the capital has grown.

Since the 1970s the area of Seoul south of the Han River has been extensively developed.
Known as Kangnam (Gangnam; “South River”), or “South City”—as opposed to Kangpuk
(Gangbuk; “North River”), or “North City,” north of the Han—the affluent area contains about
half the city’s population and, correspondingly, supplies half the local tax income. Kangnam is
characterized by high-rise apartment blocks and new office buildings and is traversed by
Teheran Street. Kangnam is developing into a second central business district of Seoul and
attracts economic activity in such areas as tourism, design and fashion, information
technology, and other new technology industries.

A greenbelt around a large part of the city’s perimeter, first established in the 1970s, prohibits
the further extension of the built-up area. As a result, urban sprawl has extended to places
outside the greenbelt, creating new residential areas in suburbs and satellite cities, mainly
along the Seoul-Pusan (Busan) expressway to the south and along the Han River to the east
and west. A new phenomenon of urbanization began in the mid-1980s: people of the upper
middle class began moving to the remote suburbs amid rural landscapes, extending their one-
way commutes each day to an hour or more.

Climate

Seoul’s climate is characterized by a large annual range of temperature. The coldest month,
January, has a mean temperature of about 26 °F (−3 °C), and the warmest month, August, has a
mean temperature of about 78 °F (25 °C). Yearly precipitation in the city is approximately 54
inches (1,370 mm), with a heavy concentration during the summer months. Air pollution in the
basin and in Yŏngdŭng-p’o (Yeongdeungpo), an industrial area in the southwest, just south of
the river, has become a serious problem, caused in large part by the increasing number of
automobiles and factories. For years the Han was highly polluted, but since the early 1980s
pollution levels have been reduced significantly by measures to control the river’s water level
and by the construction of large-scale sewage treatment facilities.

City layout
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Street patterns in the city centre north of the river are basically on a rectangular grid. Streets
and buildings stretch out from the sites of the old city wall’s four major gates: Bukdaemun
(“Great North Gate”), located near the top of Mount Pugak (Bugak) in the northern part of the
city; Tongdaemun (“Great East Gate”); Namdaemun (“Great South Gate”), a designated
national treasure whose wooden superstructure was destroyed by fire in 2008 (the rebuilt gate
was reopened in 2013); and Sŏdaemun (“Great West Gate”). Outward from these gates the city
extends toward the neighbourhoods (dong) of Mia and Suyu to the north and Ch’ŏngnyangni
to the east, the districts (gu) of Yongsan and Yŏngdŭng-p’o to the south, and Map’o district
and Hongje neighbourhood to the west. Main streets, such as Ŭlchi-ro (Euljiro) and Chong-no
(Jongno), are oriented east to west, but, toward the foot of the surrounding hills, topographic
irregularities have some influence on the pattern. Outside the basin area of the central city,
however, there are a number of radiating streets, which are interconnected by a series of
concentric circular roads. Many government office buildings are concentrated along Sejong-
no, although the National Assembly building is on Yŏŭi (Yeoui) Island; banks, department
stores, and other business offices are located along Namdaemun-no and T’aep’yŏng-no
(Taepyeongno).

zoom_in
Seoul, South Korea
Namdaemun (“Great South Gate”),
Seoul; it was restored after its 2008
destruction and reopened in 2013.
© Digital Vision/Getty Images

zoom_in
Seoul, South Korea
Traffic in the Chong-no (Jongno) area
of Seoul, South Korea.
© Lorraine Murray

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The two parts of Seoul lying on either side of the Han River show its historical development.
The old city, sometimes known today as the North City, was founded in 1394, when it was
chosen to be the capital of the Chosŏn dynasty. Its central district, inside the four gates, was

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planned and has a rectangular street pattern. Kyŏngbok (Gyeongbok) Palace, the main palace
of the dynasty, stands in the north-central part of the district, while the royal shrine of
Chongmyo (Jongmyo) and the Sajikdan (the royal altar) are located to the east and west,
respectively. The city outside the four gates and walls developed slowly and to a limited extent
until the beginning of the 20th century. In 1934 the Japanese regime introduced a modern but
basic city-plan system that affected mainly the Japanese residential areas along the railways.
The marked population increase after World War II motivated the city to extend the road
system of the city, but the framework of the earlier system remains.

In the mid-1960s a plan was developed to expand and modernize Seoul that included the
acquisition of farmland south of the river from neighbouring provinces. However, except for
the Yŏngdŭng-p’o district in the southwest, the land south of the Han River remained green
until the 1970s. With the strong financial support of the central government, the South City
grew to a population of some five million in only one generation.

Housing

A shortage of housing has been a chronic problem. Many large-scale apartment blocks have
been built, especially along the banks of the Han. In addition, much residential housing has
been developed along the suburban fringes of the city. Old-style wooden houses, or hanok, are
still found in a few areas of the old city and adjacent to the remains of the city wall.

People
zoom_in
Korea: traditional house The population of Seoul when it was established as the
Courtyard of traditional hanok
guesthouse, Bukchon Hanok village,
capital of the Chosŏn dynasty in the 14th century was
Seoul, South Korea. about 100,000. It doubled in size by the 17th century,
© Lorraine Murray
then remained stable until the end of the 19th century. It
grew steadily from the beginning of the 20th century and reached 900,000 by the end of World
War II (1945). After the war, many Koreans who had been living abroad came back to Korea;
the majority of them settled in Seoul, as did millions of refugees from the north during and
immediately after the Korean War. By 1960 some 2.5 million people were living in Seoul.
With rapid urbanization beginning in the 1970s, the city drew migrants from throughout the
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country, and the population reached some 10 million in 1990. Since then the population has
stagnated; new towns and satellite cities around Seoul have drawn some of the metropolitan
area’s growth. The population is made up almost entirely of Korean citizens, who are almost
all ethnically Korean. Foreign residents constitute a small but appreciable fraction of the
populace; they are not concentrated in any particular areas but are distributed across the city.

zoom_in
Seoul
Crowded street in Seoul.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock

Citation Information
Article Title:
Seoul
Website Name:
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher:
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published:
06 November 2019
URL:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Seoul
Access Date:
May 28, 2021

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