After Korea achieved independence in , the city was officially renamed Seoul Metropolitan City. However, as the Korean War broke out, the city fell into ruin. In the s, Seoul rapidly grew out of the ashes of the war and, supported by rapid economic growth, it advanced to become a global megalopolis in just half a century. While it took a century for many European countries to industrialize, Korea accomplished the same in less than 30 years. In only 50 years, Seoul overcame various urban problems to grow and advance into a smart city where 10 million people live comfortably.
From the s - s, Seoul experienced serious urban issues, such as traffic congestion, environmental pollution, formation of illegal settlement areas, and housing shortages, as a result of the extensive population inflow and lack of social infrastructure. To resolve these issues, the Seoul Metropolitan Government focused on establishing a basic infrastructure by expanding roads, building apartment complexes in illegal settlement areas, and constructing the Cheonggye Overpass and Yeouido Island.
During the s - s, the Seoul Metropolitan Government embarked on a series of active urban improvement and city beautification policies in line with Korea hosting the Asian Games in and the Olympic Games in Modern landmarks include the iconic N Seoul Tower, the gold-clad 63 Building, the neofuturistic Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Lotte World, the world's largest indoor theme park, Moonlight Rainbow Fountain, the world's longest bridge fountain and the Sevit Floating Islands.
The birthplace of K-pop and the Korean Wave, Seoul received over 10 million international visitors in , making it the world's 9th most visited city and 4th largest earner in tourism. In , it was rated Asia's most livable city with the second highest quality of life globally by Arcadis. Ranked sixth in the Global Power City Index and Global Financial Centres Index, the metropolis exerts a major influence in global affairs as one of the five leading hosts of global conferences.
Seoul is the world's most wired city and ranked first in technology readiness by PwC's Cities of Opportunity report. Lotte World Tower, a metre supertall skyscraper with floors, has been built in Seoul and become the OECD's tallest in , with the world's tallest art gallery. Its Lotte Cinema houses the world's largest cinema screen. More information is available on Wikipedia.
Situated near North Korea, Seoul is the largest city and the commercial, manufacturing, and cultural centre of South Korea. Traditional Korea borrowed much of its high culture from China, including the use of Chinese characters in the written language and the adoption of Neo-Confucianism as the philosophy of the ruling elite.
But while symbolically dependent on China for military protection and political legitimization, in practice Korea was quite independent in its internal behavior. After devastating invasions by the Japanese at the end of the sixteenth century and by the Manchus of Northeast Asia in the early seventeenth, Korea enforced a policy of strictly limited contact with all other countries.
The main foreign contacts officially sanctioned by the Choson Dynasty were diplomatic missions to China three or four times a year and a small outpost of Japanese merchants in the southeastern part of Korea near the present-day city of Pusan.
Few Koreans left the peninsula during the late Choson Dynasty, and even fewer foreigners entered. Japanese Colonial Period During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Korea became the object of competing imperial interests as the Chinese empire declined and Western powers began to vie for ascendancy in East Asia.
It took Japan, itself only recently opened to Western-style international relations by the United States, to impose a diplomatic treaty on Korea for the first time in Japan, China, and Russia were the main rivals for influence on Korea in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and after defeating China and Russia in war between and , Japan became the predominant power on the Korean peninsula.
In Japan annexed Korea outright as a colony, and for the next 35 years Japan ruled Korea in a manner that was strict and often brutal. However, Japan also brought the beginnings of industrial development to Korea. Modern industries such as steel, cement, and chemical plants were set up in Korea during the s and s, especially in the northern part of the peninsula where coal and hydroelectric power resources were abundant.
By the time Japanese colonial rule ended in August , Korea was the second most industrialized country in Asia after Japan itself. In the final days of the war, the United States and the Soviet Union had agreed to jointly accept the Japanese surrender in Korea, with the U. However, by , the emerging Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, combined with political differences between Koreans of the two occupation zones and the policies of the occupation forces on the ground, led to a breakdown in negotiations over a unified government of Korea.
On August 15, , a pro-U. Both governments claimed to legitimately represent the entire Korean people, creating a situation of extreme tension across the 38th parallel. On June 25, , North Korea, backed by the U. Under the flag of the United Nations, a U. In July , after millions of deaths and enormous physical destruction, the war ended approximately were it began, with North and South Korea divided into roughly equal territories by the cease-fire line, a Demilitarized Zone DMZ that still forms the boundary between North and South Korea today.
Since , North and South Korea have evolved from a common cultural and historical base into two very different societies with radically dissimilar political and economic systems. The differences between North and South Korea today have little to do with pre regional differences between northern and southern Korea.
North Korea developed into perhaps the most isolated and controlled of all communist states, and even 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, showed little sign of political and economic liberalization despite severe economic hardship. South Korea, on the other hand, has been greatly influenced by the United States and, in a more subtle way, by Japan.
The U. While South Korea has often been less democratic than Americans would like or the Korean leaders claimed it to be, since the fall of its military dictatorship in the late s democracy appears to have become increasingly consolidated in the R. South Korea recovered rapidly from the Asian financial crisis of and is currently the third-largest economy in Eastern Asia, after Japan and China. As in many other countries, American popular culture is an important presence in South Korea.
To a lesser extent, Japanese popular culture is influential as well.
0コメント