Seoul's Fight For a Better River

Stretching from east to west across 320 miles of the Korean peninsula, the Han River is the navel of South Korea’s capital. Fed into by eastern tributaries, its main artery cleaves through the center of the city in a way that few other major rivers do, bisecting Seoul into two areas named based on their orientation to the river—Gangbuk (north) and Gangnam (south)—before emptying into the Yellow Sea. In the national mythology, it’s a symbol of prosperity and the namesake of the country’s explosive economic growth spurt in the 1960s, “the Miracle on the Han River.”

Today, however, the Han River is one of Seoul’s most intractable city planning conundrums. Half a century of heavy development has taken its toll. And many, like Seoul mayor Park Won-soon, have been calling for measures to restore the Han’s frayed natural beauty. The central government, however, has put forward a radically different vision.