Modern Seoul has functioned continuously as a capital city since 1394, when the nascent Joseon dynasty selected it as the most auspicious place from which to rule their new kingdom, though Neolithic remains prove the area had already been a major centre of population for several thousand years prior to this. Seoul most likely first served as a place of power at around the same time that Augustus was inaugurating the Roman Empire: the Baekje dynasty proclaimed their first capital in 18 BC, on a site likely to have been within the present-day city limits. They soon moved the throne southwest to Ungjin (now known as Gongju), and Seoul was passed this way and that between the Three Kingdoms until the Joseon dynasty came to power in 1392, and favoured Seoul’s position at the centre of the peninsula. Over a period of more than five centuries a full 27 kings came and went, alliances were made and broken with the Chinese and Japanese dynasties of the time and in the seventeenth century Korea retreated into its shell, becoming a “Hermit Kingdom”, effectively shut off to the rest of the world. In 1910, at a time of global turmoil, Joseon rule was snuffed out by the Japanese, bringing to an end Korea’s monarchy. World War II ended Japanese annexation, after which Korea was split in two in the face of the looming Cold War. There then followed the brutal Korean War, and in 1953 the communist North and the capitalist South went their separate ways; Seoul remained a capital city, but only of the south of the peninsula, while Pyongyang became the northern centre of control. With its position almost exactly on the line of control, Seoul inevitably suffered widespread destruction, making it all the more remarkable when, within just one generation, the city rose from the ashes to become an industrial powerhouse.
Rivers tend to provide a road map of civilization, and with its fertile valley, the wide Hangang likely proved a tempting base for hunter-gatherers during Paleolithic times. However, the first tangible evidence of habitation in Seoul itself is a clutch of Neolithic remains found in what is now the east of the city; dating from 7000 to 3000 BC, these artefacts detail the area’s transition from the Stone to the Bronze Age. In addition to the use of metal tools, from 7000 BC pottery was being produced with distinctive comb-toothed patterns (jeulmun) similar to those found in Mongolia and Manchuria. Fired earth also came to play a part in death rituals, a fact made evident by small, shell-like “jars” into which the broken bodies were placed together with personal belongings; these were then lowered into a pit and covered with earth. An even more distinctive style of burial was to develop in the first millennium BC, with some tombs covered with dolmens. Korea is home to over thirty thousand such burial mounds; these are spread across the country, but are most prevalent in Ganghwado, an island west of Seoul whose collection is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
Korea’s major historical eras
Gojoseon c.2333 BC to c.109 BC
Three Kingdoms c.57 BC to 668 AD, Silla c.57 BC to 668 AD, Goguryeo c.37 BC to 668 AD, Baekje c.18 BC to 660 AD
Unified Silla 668–935
Goryeo 918–1392
Joseon 1392–1910
Japanese colonial period 1910–1945
Republic of Korea (South) 1945–present
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North) 1945–present
Today the peninsula’s first kingdom is usually referred to as Gojoseon (“Old Joseon”) in an effort to distinguish it from the later Joseon period (1392–1910). Its origins are obscure, to say the least, but most experts agree that it got going in 2333 BC under the leadership of Dangun, who has since become the subject of one of Korea’s most cherished myths – apparently, he was the son of a tiger turned human. Gojoseon initially functioned as a loose federation of fiefdoms covering not only parts of the Korean peninsula but large swathes of Manchuria too. By 500 BC it had become a single, highly organized dominion, even drawing praise from Confucius and other Chinese sages. Accounts of the fall of Gojoseon are also rather vague, but Seoul seems to have been at the forefront: the kingdom was apparently conquered by the nascent Chinese Han dynasty in 109 BC, who were in turn forced out over the following few decades by natives of the Hangang area at the start of what’s now known as the “Three Kingdoms” period. Joseon’s historical name lives on: North Korea continues to refer to itself as such (and South Korea as Namjoseon, or “South Joseon”), while many South Korean tourist brochures use “The Land of Morning Calm” – a literal translation of the term – as a national motto.
By 109 BC, after the fall of Gojoseon, the peninsula had split into half a dozen fiefdoms, the most powerful of which – Silla, Goguryeo and Baekje – became known as the Three Kingdoms. Around this time, close ties with China brought Buddhism to Korea, while Confucianism (another Chinese import) provided the social building blocks, with a number of educational academies supplying the yangban, scholars at the head of the aristocracy. Great advances were made in the arts, particularly with regard to jewellery and pottery, and thousands of wonderful relics have been discovered in the grassy hill-tombs of dead kings and other formerly sacred sites.
Fertile and with good transportation routes, the Hangang valleys were in demand, and Seoul was to fall under the banner of all three kingdoms at different times. First in were the Baekje, a kingdom created in 18 BC as the result of great movements of people on the western side of the Korean peninsula. The dynasty was inaugurated by King Onjo, a man jealous of his brother’s inheritance of the rival Goguryeo kingdom, itself started by their father Dongmyeong. Wiryeseong, which almost certainly lay within Seoul’s present-day borders, became the first Baekje capital.
Goguryeo got their own back several generations down the line when the great king Gwanggaeto seized control of the Hangang area in 329 AD. Baekje retreated southwest, establishing new capitals at what are now Gongju and Buyeo, and cultivating an artistic reputation. Baekje became friendly with the Japanese kingdom of Wa, and evidence of this close relationship can still be seen today – the lacquered boxes, folding screens, immaculate earthenware and intricate jewellery of Japan are said to derive from the influence of Baekje artisans. This relationship allowed Baekje to grow in power, and they were to retake Seoul, only to see it snatched back by Goguryeo’s King Jangsu in 475, after which the city was renamed Hanseong.
Baekje were not done with Seoul, and formed an alliance with Silla, the peninsula’s third kingdom. Together, they pushed Goguryeo north and out of Seoul in 551, though Silla was to become the senior party in the relationship, since the Japanese Wa did not provide Baekje such protection as the Chinese Tang dynasty gave Silla. After taking control of Seoul, Silla enlisted Tang help in 660 to eliminate the Baekje kingdom, whose last pockets of resistance literally toppled from a cliff in Buyeo’s riverside fortress. This left only Goguryeo as peninsular rivals, and with a vice-like position between Silla to the south and the Tang to the north, it was only a matter of time (eight years, to be precise) before they too were vanquished, setting the scene for a first-ever unified rule on the peninsula.
Following the quickfire defeats of its two competitor kingdoms in the 660s, the Silla dynasty instigated the Korean peninsula’s first-ever unification. They kept the southeastern city of Gyeongju as their seat of power, renaming Seoul “Hanyang” but relegating it to a provincial power base. Silla set about cultivating a peninsular sense of identity, and the pooling of ideas and talent in the eighth century created a high-water mark of artistic development, particularly in metalwork and earthenware. However, rulers stuck to a rigidly Confucian “bone rank” system, which placed strict limits on what an individual could achieve in life, based almost entirely on their genetic background. Though it largely succeeded in keeping the proletariat quiet, this highly centralized system was to lead to Silla’s demise: the late eighth century and most of the ninth were characterized by corruption and in-fighting at the highest levels of Silla society, and a near-permanent state of civil war. With the Silla king reduced to little more than a figurehead, the former kingdoms of Baekje and Goguryeo were resurrected (now known as “Hubaekje” and “Taebong” respectively). Silla shrank back to within its Three Kingdoms-era borders, and after a power struggle Taebong took control of the peninsula; in 935, King Gyeongsun ceded control of his empire in a peaceful transfer of power to Taebong leader Wang Geon, who went on to become Taejo, the first king of the Goryeo dynasty.
Seoul’s historical names
Wiryeseong under Baekje rule, partly as capital, c.18 BC to 475 AD
Hanseong under Goguryeo rule, 475 to 668
Hanyang under Unified Silla rule, 668 to 918
Namgyeong under Goryeo rule, 918 to 1392
Seoul as capital of the Joseon dynasty, 1392 to 1910
Gyeongseong (Keijo) during Japanese occupation, 1910 to 1945
Seoul again as capital of the Republic of Korea, 1945 to present
Having grown from a mini-kingdom known as Taebong, one of the many battling for power following the collapse of Silla control, it was the Goryeo dynasty that eventually gave its name to the English term “Korea”. It began life in 918 under the rule of Taejo, a powerful leader who needed less than two decades to bring the whole peninsula under his control. One of his daughters married Gyeongsun, the last king of Silla, and Taejo himself wed a Silla queen, two telling examples of the new king’s desire to cultivate a sense of national unity – he even gave positions of authority to known enemies. Relations with China and Japan were good, and the kingdom became ever more prosperous.
Following the fall of Silla, Taejo moved the national capital to his hometown, Kaesong, a city in present-day North Korea, while Seoul became Namgyeong, the “Southern Capital”. Taejo and successive leaders also changed some of the bureaucratic systems that had contributed to Silla’s downfall: power was centralized in the king but devolved to the furthest reaches of his domain, and even those without aristocratic backgrounds could, in theory, reach lofty governmental positions via a system of state-run examinations. Despite the Confucian social system, Buddhism continued to function as the state religion, and repeated refinements in the pottery industry saw Korean produce attain a level of quality only bettered in China. In fact, despite great efforts, some pottery techniques perfected in Goryeo times remain a mystery today, perhaps never to be replicated.
In 1248, Goryeo was attacked by Mongol hordes, and became a vassal state of the Great Khans. Annexation came at a great human cost, one echoed in a gradual worsening of Goryeo’s economy and social structure. This lasted almost a century, before King Gongmin took advantage of a weakening Chinese–Mongol Yuan dynasty (founded by Kublai Khan) to regain independence. He made an attempt at reform, purging the top ranks of those he felt to be pro-Mongol, but this instilled fear of yet more change into the yangban elite, and he was eventually murdered. After a series of short-lived kings, powerful Joseon General Yi Seong-gye decided to take the mantle himself, and in 1392 declared himself King Taejo, the first leader of the Joseon dynasty.
The Joseon era started off much the same as the Goryeo dynasty had almost five centuries before, with a militaristic king named Taejo on the throne, a name that translates as “The Grand Ancestor”. Joseon was to last even longer, with a full 27 kings ruling from 1392 until the Japanese annexation in 1910. Taejo moved the capital from Kaesong to Seoul (the first time the city had used its present name), and immediately set about entrenching his power with a series of mammoth projects. The first few years of his reign saw the wonderful palace of Gyeongbokgung, the ancestral shrines of Jongmyo and a gate-studded city wall go up. His vision was quite astonishing – the chosen capital and its palace and shrine remain to this day, together with sections of the wall. More grand palaces would rise in due course, while another four would at various times house the royal throne. From the start of the dynasty, Buddhism declined in influence as Confucianism permeated society ever more in its stead. Joseon’s social system became more hierarchical in nature, with the king and other royalty at the top, and the hereditary yangban class of scholars and aristocrats just beneath, followed by various levels of employment, with the servants and slaves at the bottom of the pile. All of these social strata were governed by heredity, but the yangban became increasingly powerful as the dynasty progressed, gradually starting to undermine the power of the king. They were viewed as a world apart by the commoners, and they placed great emphasis on study and the arts. However, only the yangban had access to education and literacy, as Chinese characters were used. In the 1440s King Sejong (reigned 1418–50) devised hangeul, a new and simple local script that all classes could read and write; the yangban were not fond of this, and it was banned at the beginning of the sixteenth century, lying largely dormant until it was resurrected by waves of nationalist sentiment that greeted the end of Japanese annexation in 1945.
In 1592, under the command of feared warlord Hideyoshi, Japan set out to conquer the Ming dynasty, with China a stepping stone towards possible domination of the whole Asian continent. The Korean peninsula had the misfortune to be both in the way and loyal to the Ming. After King Seonjo refused to allow Japanese troops safe passage, Hideyoshi mustered all his military’s power and unloaded the lot at Korea, with another major wave of attacks coming in 1597. Korea was then also affected by the internal strife of its closest ally, China. Following the dynastic transfer from Ming to Qing in the 1640s Joseon became a vassal state, forced to spend substantial sums paying tribute to the emperors in Beijing. After all this, it was no surprise that Korea turned inwards: it became known as the “Hermit Kingdom”, one of which outsiders knew little, and saw even less. One exception was a Dutch ship that crashed off Jeju Island in 1653 en route to Japan; the survivors were brought to Seoul, but their appeal for release was turned down by King Hyojong. They were essentially kept prisoner in Korea for thirteen years but finally managed to escape, and the accounts of one survivor, Hendrick Hamel, provided the Western world with one of its first windows into isolationist Korea.
The Dutch prisoners had entered a land in which corruption and factionalism were rife, one that achieved little social or economic stability until the rule of King Yeongjo (1724–76), who authorized a purge of crooked officials, but also murdered his son. Yeongjo’s grandson Jeongjo, who came to the throne in 1776, became one of the most revered of Korea’s kings, instigating top-to-bottom reform to wrench power from the yangban elite, and allowing for the creation of a small middle class. The lot of the poor also gradually improved.
Following Japan’s opening up to foreign trade in the 1860s (the Meiji Restoration), Korea found itself under pressure to do likewise, not just from the Japanese but from the United States and the more powerful European countries – warships were sent from around the globe to ensure agreement. Much of the activity occurred on and around the island of Ganghwado, just west of Seoul. The French occupied the isle but failed to advance on the mainland in 1866, their battle fought partly as retaliation for the murder of several French missionaries. Five years later, and in the same location, the Americans also attempted – and failed – to prise the country open to trade. The third bout of gunboat diplomacy – this time by the Japanese in 1876 – resulted in the Treaty of Ganghwa, which dragged Korea into the global marketplace on unfair terms. From this point until well after the Korean War, Korea would be a ship largely steered by foreign powers.
Through means both political and economic, the Japanese gradually strengthened their position in Korea. Local resentment boiled over into occasional riots and protests, and peaked in 1895 after the Japanese-orchestrated murder of Empress Myeongseong – “Queen Min” to the Japanese – in Gyeongbokgung palace. After this event, King Gojong (r.1863–1910) fled to the Russian embassy for protection; in 1897, when things had quietened down sufficiently, he moved into the nearby palace of Deoksugung where he set up the short-lived Empire of Korea, a toothless administration under almost full Japanese control.
In 1902 Japan forged an alliance with the British Empire, recognizing British interests in China in return for British acknowledgement of Japanese interests in Korea. Sensing shifts in power, Russia began expanding into Korea, though they ran into the Japanese on the way. To avoid confrontation, Japan suggested that the two countries carve Korea up along the 38th parallel, a line roughly bisecting the peninsula. Russia refused to accept, and the two fought the Russo-Japanese War across Manchuria and the Yellow Sea in 1904–05; after its surprise victory, Japan was in a position to occupy the peninsula outright. They were given tacit permission to do so in 1905 by US Secretary of State and future president William Taft, who agreed in a secret meeting to accept Japanese domination of Korea if Japan would accept the American occupation of the Philippines. Korea became a Japanese protectorate that year, and Japan gradually ratcheted up its power on the peninsula before a final outright annexation in 1910. Joseon’s kings had next to no say in the running of the country during its last quarter-century of dynastic succession. Sunjong, the peninsula’s final monarch, retreated into early retirement in Changdeokgung, and the book softly closed on Korea’s near two thousand years of unbroken regal rule.
After the signing of the Annexation Treaty in 1910, Japan wasted no time in filling all the top posts in politics, banking, law and industry with its own personnel; despite the fact that they never represented more than four percent of the peninsular population, they came to control almost every sphere of the country. Korea was but part of the Empire of Japan’s dream of continental hegemony, and being the nearest stepping stone from the motherland, it was also the most heavily trampled on. While the Japanese went on to occupy most of Southeast Asia and large swathes of China, only in Korea did they have the time and leverage necessary to attempt a total annihilation of national identity. Some of the most powerful insults to national pride were hammered home early. The royal palace of Gyeongbokgung had all the Confucian principles observed in its construction shattered by the placing of a modern Japanese structure in its first holy courtyard, while Changgyeonggung suddenly found itself home to a decidedly un-royal theme park and zoo. Korean currency, clothing and even the language itself were placed under ever stricter control, locals were required to take Japanese names, and thousands of local “comfort women” were forced into sexual slavery. Korean productivity grew, but much of this was also for Japan’s benefit – within ten years, more than half of the country’s rice was heading across the sea.
The local populace, unsurprisingly, objected to this enforced servitude. In 1919, the March 1st Movement saw millions of Koreans take to the streets in a series of non-violent nationwide protests. A declaration of independence was read out in Seoul’s Tapgol Park, followed by processions through the streets and the singing of the Korean national anthem. The Japanese police attempted to suppress the revolt through force; around seven thousand died in the months of resistance demonstrations that followed. A government-in-exile was established across the sea in Shanghai, but in Korea itself the main result of the resistance movement was a marked change of Japanese policy towards Korea, with Saito Makoto (the admiral in charge of quelling the chaos) agreeing to lift the bans on Korean radio, printed material and the creation of organizations, a policing that aimed to promote harmony rather than pushing the militarist line. The pendulum swung back towards oppression on the approach to World War II – in the late 1930s, Japan began forcing Koreans to worship at Shinto shrines, speak Japanese and even adopt a Japanese name (a practice known as soshi-kaimei), all helped by local collaborators (chinilpa).
Throughout the occupation period, the Korean government-in-exile had been forced ever further west from China’s eastern seaboard, eventually landing near the Tibetan plateau in the Sichuanese city of Chongqing. Modern Korean museums and history books extol the achievements of what was, in reality, a largely toothless group. In doing this they gloss over the fundamental reason for Korea’s independence: the American A-bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thereby ending both World War II and the Empire of Japan itself. With Tokyo busy elsewhere, Seoul was little affected by the war: the main change in city life was the conscription of tens of thousands of Korean men, many of whom never returned.
An even greater number of Koreans had moved to Japan prior to the war. Some, of course, were collaborators fearful of reprisals should they head home, but the majority were simply squeezed out of their impoverished homeland by Japanese land confiscations. Many of these Korean families remain in Japan today, and are referred to there as “Zainichi Koreans”.
Known to many as the “Forgotten War”, sandwiched as it was between World War II and the war in Vietnam, the Korean conflict was one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies, laying waste to the city of Seoul, which stood more or less in the middle of the two warring parties. The impoverished Korean peninsula had already been pushed to the back of the global mind during World War II; the land was under Japanese control, but the Allied forces had developed no plans for its future should the war be won. In fact, at the close of the war US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius had to be told in a meeting where Korea actually was. It was only when the Soviet Union sent troops into Korea in 1945 that consideration was given to Korea’s postwar life. During an emergency meeting on August 10, 1945, American officials and high-rankers (including eventual Secretary of State Dean Rusk) sat with a National Geographic map and a pencil, and scratched a line across the 38th parallel, just north of Seoul – a simple solution, but one that was to have grave repercussions for Korea.
With World War II rapidly developing into the Cold War, Soviet forces occupied the northern half of the peninsula, Americans the south. Both countries imposed their own social, political and economic norms on the Koreans under their control, thereby creating two de facto states diametrically opposed in ideology that refused to recognize each other. The Republic of Korea (now more commonly referred to as “South Korea”) declared independence in Seoul on August 15, 1948, exactly three years after liberation from the Japanese, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea followed suit just over three weeks later. The US installed a leader favourable to them, selecting Syngman Rhee (ironically born in what is now North Korea), who had degrees from American universities. Stalin chose the much younger Kim Il Sung, who like Rhee had been in exile for much of the Japanese occupation. The foreign forces withdrew, and the two Koreas were left to their own devices, each hellbent on unifying the peninsula by absorbing the opposing half; inevitably, locals were forced into this polarization of opinions, one that split friends and even families apart. Kim wanted to wade into war immediately, and Stalin turned down two requests for approval of such an action. The third time, for reasons that remain open to conjecture, he apparently gave the nod.
Nobody knows for sure exactly how the Korean War started. Or, rather, everyone does: the other side attacked first. The South Korean line is that on June 25, 1950, troops from the northern Korean People’s Army (KPA) burst across the 38th parallel, then little more than a roll of tape. The DPRK itself claims that it was the south that started the war, and indeed both sides had started smaller conflicts along the line on several occasions; declassified Soviet information seems to show that the main battle was kicked off by the north. With the southern forces substantially ill-equipped in comparison, Seoul fell just three days later, but they were soon aided by a sixteen-nation coalition fighting under the United Nations banner – the vast majority of troops were from the United States, but additional forces arrived from Britain, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Turkey, the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, Thailand, Ethiopia, Greece, Colombia, Belgium, South Africa and Luxembourg; other countries provided non-combative support.
Within three months, the KPA had hemmed the United Nations Command (UNC) into the far southeast of the country, behind a short line of control that became known as the Pusan Perimeter, a boundary surrounding the (now re-romanized) city of Busan. Though the KPA held most of the peninsula, American general Douglas MacArthur identified a weak logistical spine and poor supply lines as their Achilles heel, and ordered amphibious landings behind enemy lines at Incheon, just west of Seoul, in an attempt to cut off their enemy. The ambitious plan worked to perfection, and UNC forces pushed north way beyond the 38th parallel, reaching sections of the Chinese border within six weeks. At this stage, with the battle seemingly won, the Chinese entered the fight and ordered almost a million troops into North Korea; with their help, the KPA were able to push back past the 38th parallel. The UNC made one more thrust north in early 1951, and after six months the two sides ended up pretty much where they started. The lines of the conflict settled around the 38th parallel, near what was to become the Demilitarized Zone. The fighting did not end for well over two years, until the signing of an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953. North Korea, China and the United Nations Command signed the document, but South Korea refused to do likewise, meaning that the war is still technically being fought today.
In effect, both sides lost. Seoul had fallen four times – twice to each side – and Korea’s population was decimated, with over two million civilians killed, wounded or missing over the course of the war; to this can be added a combined total of around two million troops killed or injured in action. Had the war been “contained” and brought to an end when the line of control stabilized in early 1951, these figures would have been far lower. The war split thousands of families as the front line yo-yoed up and down the land, and as people were forced to switch sides to avoid starvation or torture, or to stay in contact with other family members. Though the course of the war was easy enough to understand, propaganda clouded many of the more basic details, and the conflict was largely forgotten by the West. For all the coverage of Vietnam, few know that a far greater amount of napalm fell on North Korea, a much more “suitable” target for the material thanks to its greater number of large urban areas. Also kept quiet was how close they came to using nuclear weapons. Since the end of the war there have been innumerable accounts of atrocities committed on both sides, many detailing beatings, torture and the unlawful murder of prisoners of war, others documenting the slaughter of entire villages. Korea lay in ruins, yet two countries were slowly able to emerge from the ashes.
Considering its state after the war, Seoul’s transformation is nothing short of astonishing. A rapid phase of industrialization, one often referred to as the “Economic Miracle” in the West, saw South Korea become one of Asia’s most ferocious financial tigers, and Seoul morph from battle-scarred wasteland into one of the world’s largest and most dynamic cities. The country’s GDP-per-head shot up from under US$100 in 1963 to almost US$30,000 in 2010. Thanks in large part to the bullishness of large conglomerates (known as jaebeol) such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG, it now sits proudly on the cusp of the world’s ten most powerful economies. And, since flinging off its autocratic straitjacket in the 1980s, it developed sufficiently to be selected as host of two of the world’s most high-profile sporting events – the Summer Olympics in 1988, and football’s World Cup in 2002 – plus the G20 Summit in 2010.
Today’s visitor to Seoul will scarcely be able to imagine the state that the city was in after the double whammy of Japanese occupation and the Korean War. Korea was, essentially, a third-world country, with shantytowns widespread even in central Seoul. Indeed, more than half the city’s population was homeless and the construction of new housing was hampered by the fact that Japan had stripped the peninsula’s trees for its own use. Neither were Korea’s problems merely structural or economic in nature – every single person in the land carried memories of wartime atrocities in their minds, and countless families had been torn apart. In addition, accusations and recriminations were rife, and everyone knew that hostilities with the North could resume at any moment. American-educated Syngman Rhee, who had been selected as president before the war, ruled in an increasingly autocratic manner, making constitutional amendments to stay in power and purging parliament of those against his policies. In 1960 disgruntled students led the April 19 Movement against Rhee’s rule, and after being toppled in a coup he was forced into exile, choosing Hawaii as his new home.
One dictator was swiftly replaced with another: Yun Bo-seon came to office as a puppet of military general Park Chung-hee, who then swiftly engineered a coup and took the presidency himself in 1962. To an even greater degree than Rhee before him, Park’s name became synonymous with corruption, dictatorship and the flouting of human rights – thousands were jailed merely for daring to criticize his rule. To his credit, Park introduced the economic reforms that allowed his country to push forward – until the mid-1970s, the South Korean economy actually lagged behind that of North Korea – and the country made great advances in automotive, electronic, heavy and chemical industries. This was, however, achieved at a cost, since Korean tradition largely went out of the window in favour of bare economic progress. These policies were a major factor behind the loss of Korea’s traditional buildings: today, Seoul has almost none left. Park’s authoritarian rule continued to ruffle feathers around the country, and the danger from the North had far from subsided – Park was the subject, and Seoul the scene, of two failed assassination attempts by North Korean agents. It was, however, members of his own intelligence service who gunned him down in 1979, claiming that he was “an insurmountable obstacle to democratic reform”. Those responsible were hanged the following year.
Park’s eventual successor, Chun Doo-hwan, was also from the southeast of the country, and the resultant Seoul–Gyeongsang tangent of power saw those parts of the country developing rapidly, while others languished far behind. The arrest of liberal southwestern politician Kim Dae-jung, as well as the botched trials following the assassination of Park Chung-hee, were catalysts for mass uprisings across the land, though mainly concentrated in Jeju Island and the southwestern provinces. These culminated in the Gwangju Massacre of May 1980, where over two hundred civilians died after their protest was crushed by the military.
Rather incredibly, just one year after the massacre, Seoul was given the rights to host the 1988 Summer Olympics. Some estimates say the Gwangju Massacre resulted in a similar death count to the Tiananmen Square massacre, though it’s hard to imagine Beijing being granted a similar honour the year after those events. Originally the brainchild of Park Chung-hee, the Olympic plan was followed through by Chun Doo-hwan in an apparent attempt to seek international recognition of his authoritarian rule. Though he may have regarded the winning of the 1981 Olympic vote as a tacit global nod of acceptance, the strategy backfired somewhat when the country was thrust into the spotlight. Partly as a result of this increased attention, Korea’s first-ever free elections were held in 1987, with Roh Tae-woo taking the helm. During the same period Korean conglomerates, known as the jaebeol, were spreading their financial arms around the world. Korea’s aggressive, debt-funded expansion worsened the effect of the Asian Currency Crisis on the country in 1997, and for several years after it struck, the bare shells of over a hundred partially finished buildings stood around Seoul.
The sinking of the Cheonan, and the Yeonpyeongdo attacks
On March 26, 2010, the Cheonan, a South Korean naval vessel, sank in the waters off Baengnyeongdo, killing 46 of its crew of just over one hundred, and claiming the life of one rescue worker. With the incident taking place in waters so close to the North Korean border, there was immediate worldwide suspicion that Pyongyang was behind the attack; Seoul refused to be drawn into such a conclusion, choosing instead to wait for the results of a full investigation. South Korean conspiracy theorists initially blamed an American submarine which had “gone missing”, though such rumours were hurriedly put to bed when the sub resurfaced a few days later on the other side of the world. One rumour that refused to go away was that the attack may have been an internal show of force from Kim Jong Un, who was at the time being groomed for leadership in North Korea. It was suggested that Kim may have used the incident to prove himself to the country’s military leadership, who were known to be unhappy with a dynastic transfer of power from his father, Kim Jong Il. Two months after the incident, an international team found that the Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo, most likely fired by a North Korean vessel.
Pyongyang continues to deny responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan, but the attacks of November 23, 2010, were more directly attributable to North Korea. Almost two hundred shells and rockets were fired from North Korea’s southern coast at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeongdo in response to Seoul’s refusal to halt a military training exercise in nearby waters. The northern shelling appeared to be indiscriminate, killing two civilians and two soldiers from the South, which responded in kind with howitzers of its own. This was one of the most serious cross-border incidents since the Korean War, and many southerners formerly sympathetic to the North were suddenly favouring a powerful military response to any future attacks. Tensions were further escalated in 2017, during Donald Trump’s first year as president of the United States, and at the time of writing the situation remained tense.
In 1998, once-condemned liberal activist Kim Dae-jung completed a remarkable turnaround by being appointed president himself. The first South Korean leader to favour a peaceable reunification of the peninsula, he wasted no time in kicking off his “Sunshine Policy” of reconciliation with the North; some minor industrial projects were outsourced across the border, and new Seoul-funded factories were built around the city of Kaesong, just north of the DMZ. In 2000, after an historic Pyongyang summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
South Korea’s international reputation was further enhanced by its hugely successful co-hosting of the 2002 Football World Cup with Japan. However, that same year a series of incidents gave rise to something of an anti-American (and, by extension, anti-Western) sentiment. Most significant was the accidental killing of two local schoolgirls by an American armoured vehicle, which led to large protests against the US military presence (one that has declined, bit by bit, ever since). Later that year, Roh Moo-hyun was elected president on a slightly anti-American ticket; soon after taking office in early 2003, however, he sent Korean troops to Iraq, which made him instantly unpopular, and he committed suicide in 2009, following a bribery scandal. Roh’s presidency coincided with Lee Myung-bak’s tenure as mayor of Seoul. In 2003, Lee announced plans to gentrify the Cheonggyecheon creek, which was an expensive and therefore deeply unpopular project – today, however, it is much beloved by the public.
Lee was elected president of Korea in 2008, but as with Roh before him, there were almost immediate protests against his rule, this time thanks to a beef trade agreement made with the USA. Fears that mad cow disease would be imported to this beef-loving land resulted in mass protests around the city, and rioting around Gwanghwamun Plaza; one man died after setting fire to himself in protest. The plaza itself was renovated shortly afterwards, and other major projects followed, including the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, the new City Hall and some futuristic floating islands in the Hangang. Like Incheon Airport, these designs all display a curvy, chrome-and-glass style of architecture, intended to portray Seoul as a city of the future, surely one factor behind its selection as host of the G20 Summit in 2010. In 2014, however, Seoul was again rocked by protests after the sinking of the Sewol off Korea’s southwestern coast, a tragic incident in which almost 300 died – the vast majority were of school age. The issue turned into a political hot potato, with opposition parties stoking widespread protests against president Park Geun-hye, who was impeached in late 2016 following unrelated allegations of corruption.
At a local level, much has changed in Seoul during Park Won-soon’s stint as city mayor, which started in 2011. While his predecessor, Oh Se-hoon, prioritised the attraction of international tourists as his main (some would say sole) aim, Park refocused the city’s finances towards civic welfare. While the megaprojects continue, with the gargantuan Lotte World Tower being the most notable recent addition to the city’s skyline, a greater number of projects are making use of buildings or areas which already exist, with the Makercity Sewoon developments a particularly pleasing example – especially so since the whole area was, at one point, slated for demolition.