Capital of the Republic of Korea (South Korea)
Area: 605.5 sq km
Inhabitants: 9,895,217 (2000)
Population density: 16,342 inh./sq km
Founded in 1394 as the new capital of the Korean Choson Dynasty, Seoul was until the beginning of the 20th century little more than the seat of the royal court. Under the influence of the Japanese colonial administration (1910-1945), it began to develop into a center of industry and commerce. The ensuing rapid urbanization eventually caused the number of inhabitants to rise to over 1 million by 1942. After the withdrawal of the Japanese (1945) and the confusion of the Korean War (1950-1953), Seoul's functional primacy, attained during the Japanese colonial period, led to uncontrolled hyperurbanization, causing the number of inhabitants to skyrocket to 11 million by 1992 (25% of the total population of South Korea).
In 1971 a greenbelt was established around the entire city in which construction was absolutely prohibited. This prevented uncontrolled urban sprawl and caused the real estate prices in the inner city to rise so precipitously that a constant renewal of the building stock commenced, preventing urban blight.
In the mid-1980s the urbanization leaped over the greenbelt. A number of new cities, functionally closely linked with Seoul, were developed in the surrounding countryside, causing the population of Seoul City to shrink by about 1 million. Together with Seoul the resulting agglomeration of 19 large cities in the Seoul Capital Region is home to 19.4 million inhabitants. Thus this multi-core megacity, one of the largest in the world, houses 42% of the total population of South Korea.
Eckart Dege
Department of Geography
University of Kiel
