Talk:Seoul/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Initial message

Removed from main page:

How do we picture Seoul? What does Seoul mean for the foreign visitors in our city? A hometown? Merely a stopover? Seoul has turned into a grand metropolis made up of people from all over the country, while experiencing swift economic development. Now as we await the coming 21st century, Seoul is no longer a strange land for any of us, no matter which part of the country we come from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.152.156.53 (talk) 09:16, 21 May 2002 (UTC)

Image added

File:Seoul Chinese name advertisement.jpg

Advertisement in a subway station announcing the newly achieved name change of the South Korean capital in Chinese in 2005.

I included this image once trying to document the process of changing the official Chinese name for Seoul - Hànchéng (汉城/漢城) - to Shǒu'ěr (首尔/首爾). Somehow it got removed so I reincluded it because I think it depicts very well the sense of national pride that is connected with the capital. If I'm not terribly mistaken the name change derived from a dispute about history.

Longer history

According to http://english.metro.seoul.kr/about/cityfacts/history.cfm

Seoul has a lot longer history that is here described.

<quote>Baekje Kingdom was founded in 18 B.C. by Onjo, who was believed to be a son of Jumong of Goguryeo, with its capital at Habuk Wirye Castle in the north of the Hangang, but the capital was moved to the south of Hangang four years later. The name "Hanseong" as the capital of Baekje Kingdom was first recorded during the reign of King Biryu. With its capital in Hanseong, Baekje enjoyed its prime time during the reign of King Geunchogo in the mid-fourth century. </quote> --Xaos —The preceding comment was added on 05:34, 8 October 2002.

I've just added a bit on this. Hope it's fine. diwiki 09:26, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Digital Media City

Could information on Digital Media City be added to this? --Daniel C. Boyer 23:35, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Removed text about city size

I have removed/ changed the follwoing information:

With over 10 million registered citizens, the city of Seoul is the most populated single city (excluding greater metropolitan areas) in the world that human civilization has yet known - see Rand McNally (ISBN: 0-528-83872-5).

I have done this, because accoriding to the following page World Gazetteer this is no longer the case. Measuring city size is very complicated and any list produced is contested. I hope the version I produced is good enough. DiruWiki 13:35, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

message from 152.99.82.60

Setting the Record Straight:

Here are some of the false information about Seoul and Korea that we need to rectify:

Wikipeda claims that: (1) The word seoul comes from the Indian word "Sravasti", the name of a retreat that Buddha had spent much of his life; this word eventually came to mean "capital" in Korean.

Our response: This is totally groundless and not true. The word 'Seoul' has been used since the Silla Kingdom (57 B.C.-A.D. 935). Seoul was originated from the archaic words 'seobeol' or 'seoraebeol'. Both were referred to Gyeongju, the then capital of Silla, and meant the capital or capital city. Then it was transliterated into several types reflecting slight changes over time and have finally firmed up to Seoul. Today's Seoul was given its name after liberation.

Wikipedia writes: (2) During the Yi dynasty, each entrance was opened and closed each day, by ringing large bells, to allow traffic.

Our response: The correct and official term for Korea's last dynasty which existed from 1392 to 1910 is Joseon Dynasty, not Yi dynasty. Yi dynasty is unofficial and informal, and we want you to use official term to designate the dynasty.

We hope our response will clarify any misinformation about Korea.

Thanks for your attention.

Korean Information Service www.korea.net —The preceding comment was added on 06:18, 10 November 2003.

Uploaded images

I've uploaded a few images i took on a short trip to Seoul in March '03. -- Gabriel Wicke 00:49, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gwicke (talk • contribs) 00:49, 14 April 2004 (UTC)

Romanization

Is there any difference in spelling of "seoul" between three romanization systems of Korean? (MR, RR, and Yale) WhisperToMe 04:29, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The newly added info box (thanks Sewing!) should answer this question. Kokiri 22:49, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please also note that I've removed the hangeul in the text (just been added), because it's all there in the info box... It shoul make a more pleasant read for those not so proficient of the Korean script. Kokiri 22:49, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Indeed! The intro is much neater now. And, at the same time, the Hangul, Hanja, and Romanizations are organized much better and readable now. Good job, Sewing! --Menchi 00:21, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, guys! I'm glad the idea's being so well received! (At least by 2 people...) For WhisperToMe: sorry, but it's enough work doing everything in 3 romanizations (the 2 official ones plus whatever spelling a word or name commonly happens to have in English), that Yale will just complicate things. For the record, 서울 in Yale romanization is "Sewl." --Sewing 01:29, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Population

Seoul's population is not 16 millions. The city of Seoul has about 10 million inhabitants and Seoul+the suburbs have 20 millions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Noury (talk • contribs) 23:32, 3 November 2004 (UTC)

A little grand, no?

"The city is the political, cultural, social and economical centre of South Korea and East Asia." What about the other political, cultural, social, and economical centers of East Asia such as Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Osaka, etc.? How about saying, "The city is THE...center of South Korea and ONE OF THE GREAT CITIES OF East Asia...' or something to that effect? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.15.111.114 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 3 December 2004 (UTC)

Population

I changed the worldwide comparison to one using UN Urban Agglomeration figures, since local methodologies for measuring population often conflict between countries.

Assuming South Korea's figures placing the city proper population at just over 10,000,000 are accurate, I suppose that the city of Seoul must contain land that is does not meet the UN's requirements for density in order to qualify as part of an agglomeration.

If someone can find evidence showing otherwise, I'd like to hear it, because I just want these statistics in wikipedia to reflect reality. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.38.159.93 (talk • contribs) 03:38, 14 December 2004 (UTC)

no copyright?

Johnhunkim added a lot of cool pictures, but do they have copyrights? Someone should double check that these pictures are ok to use. Nesnad 13:45, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"漢城" is now known as "首爾"

We should update this information asap. Because it is now official [1]. Copied from Chinese Wikipedia:

首爾（서울）是韓國的首都，大中華地區過去稱之為漢城。2005年1月18日，首爾市議會正式通過把漢字名稱定為首爾。

大中華地區過去一直沿用這個城市在李氏朝鮮時的舊稱“漢城”，但是其他语言都翻译成“SEOUL”或类似的发音。這使日常溝通出現不少混亂，因為首爾市內有不少建築物分別使用“首爾”或“漢城”為名稱，但翻譯成中文之後，這些地方名稱會變得很相似。一個例子是：首爾市內同時有“漢城大學”及“首爾大學”，但由於兩者的漢譯都變成了“漢城大學”，使後者被逼在其中文名稱加上“國立”二字。但其實，首爾大學在韓國的知名道比漢城大學高很多。

韩国政府从1992年起就一直在进行中文名称的改名工作，2005年1月18日市議會通過使用与“SEOUL”发音相近的“首尔”作为这个城市的中文名称。但是迄今为止，在中文里使用最多的还是“汉城”这个名称，“首尔”的名称对于大多数中文使用者来说还是很陌生的。

-- minghong 18:28 Jan 19 2005 UTC

I really don't know about this "shou er"... I remember when announced the plan for the new Chinese name was ridiculed accross the Chinese-speaking world, and then quickly forgotten, seeing practically zero adoption, anywhere. Both Korean and Chinese people (in the People's Republic of China, at least) continue to refer to Seoul as Hancheng. In fact, I don't think I ever have seen or heard the new name in use, except for newspaper articles about the name change itself. --Mistermoy 08:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

首爾 is only the name they want Beijing to adopt in Chinese to replace the old 漢城 name. It is still 서울 in Korean. 首爾 would be pronounced as "su-i" in Korean and definitely doesn't match "seoul". KittySaturn 02:32, 2005 Jan 20 (UTC)

Sure? In Japanese Wikipedia, it said 韓国における漢字: 首爾[2] If someone made that clear, please update Special cities of Korea as well. -- minghong 08:02 Jan 20 2005 UTC

Yes I read the Japanese Wikipedia too and I also saw what you quoted and wondered what was going on... however they didn't name any sources. And the two sources provided here of the Seoul Metropolitan Government both say that 首爾 will be used in Chinese publications. Moreover 서울 was used in the first place as a purely Korean name (although looking up the Hanja 京 will actually turn up 서울 in addition to 경). It seems to make no sense to put Chinese characters to it, especially when they usually wouldn't even write something with a proper Hanja name like Busan in Hanja! I admit I cannot be 100% sure though. Anyone else has some opinions?

Apparently the Japanese Wikipedia has it wrong. KittySaturn is correct. Please read the mayor's statement carefully. Nothing has changed in the Korean side.

I understand what the name change is. But I don't understand why. In Korea, the name remains the same in Korean with no Hanja counterpart. So they are asking other countries to stop calling this city by its ancient name Hanseong (漢城). Such decision seems to only target Chinese and Japanese speaking countries. I wonder if they want to make decision for other countries and languages, then why didn't they go all the way to ask all English speaking countries to change the ancient name "Korea" (from Goryeo (고려; 高麗)) to the modern name "Hanguk" (한국; 韓國). Should Greece also asks the world to call the country "Hellas" from now on? In my opinion, this kind of international request from a municiple government is ridiculous and they were way out of line. Kowloonese 21:40, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

Seoul is already ソウル in Japanese so it really is just the Chinese name that is changing. I think the issue was raised, for example, how to distinguish between Hanseong University and Seoul University in Chinese or something... there was confusion. Besides, "Seoul" was a deliberate pure-Korean name and I think that a change is understandable for them not wanting a Chinese-based name attached to it any more, but I don't think Chinese people like the 首爾 name. KittySaturn 01:46, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

So the Seoul government target this at the Chinese speaking countries. I guess this is like the Chinese government want all the English speaking countries to use Beijing instead of Peking and Guangzhou instead of Canton. But the old names still stick. When it comes from Korean government, it is one thing, but from a municipal government is a bit too much. Kowloonese 01:26, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

There still seems to be some confusion as to whether 首爾 is just the Chinese name or the actual Korean Hanja name. However, any news sources (Seoul Metropolitan Government, Choson Ilbo, People's Daily etc.) that refer to the name change have clearly mentioned that it is not a Hanja change/addition, it is a Chinese name change. I don't think it is correct to keep putting 首爾 back into the Korean template table in the article, but I'll wait and see. (I have however put the 사울 特別巿 back in to fix a "leaked" table cell that displayed some weird stuff at the top of the article. 漢城 definitely is not the current Hanja.) KittySaturn 02:13, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

Here's a poll at the seoul.go.kr site [3]. The fact that they were putting pinyin-to-Hangul transliterations under the Chinese characters, instead of how to read the characters in Korean, I think shows very well that it is only intended to be a Chinese name, not Korean Hanja (not to mention that Korean Hanja doesn't use the simplified character 尔). KittySaturn 02:40, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

Great, as if the world needed another naming debate! It makes me wonder if the Koreans didn't like the fact that 漢城 was pretty close to the Japanese occupation name for the city, 京城. Or maybe they didn't like the inference that they were a part of China hinted at by the 漢 character? Who knows. External link "1" didn't work for me ... are there any news stories in English about the switch? I found some in Japanese, but English would be nice for the English Wikipedia. CES 04:33, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This Chinese naming thing occupies one third of the introductory part. It doesn't deserve being in the introduction. It should be put at a separate chapter like "issue of Chinese naming".

You korean people should really get over this .... little man syndrome.. It's like people ever give a crap to the Chinese name of your capital.. As far as I know, it's still 漢城/汉城.. or whatever it is.. What the **** is 首爾/首尔 is really beyond me..

Urm excuse me, you've forgotten that Seoul is a Korean city and they have every right, as a sovereign country, to change their name (in this case, the Chinese name). Plus, do you even know what "漢" means? It was used in the old days (and still is) to represent China. Eg) 漢子 (한자 hanja/Kanji) since 漢 represents China (Han) and 子 means characters, 漢子 literally means "chinese characters". And why would Seoulites want "CHINA" in the name of their city? Plus, the governments of the republic and the people's rebublic of china has agreed with the Korean government and have changed it- which means, no one really cares what you think. Also, please do not swear. (censored by me) -dandan xD 1:57 pm 16 Sep 2006 (AEST)

How?

How do you get rid of that <td漢城 on the top of the article?

Done. KittySaturn 02:02, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

POV

This article is obviously written from a strongly nationalist perspective and contains so many exaggerations, it resembles government propaganda. I have lived in Seoul for many years, and it is hardly as it is claimed here.

"boosted it to the status of a global city, playing a special role as the greatest metropolis to ever rise from the ashes of a former colony and a war-torn nation."

Such hyperbole does not describe Seoul. It is most certainly not a global city. It has only trivial minority and immigrant populations, and has probably the poorest selection of foreign restaurants of any Asian capital. It does not have any cultural institutions of international repute, has very few libraries, very few museums (most of which are small and mediocre), and virtually no parks in any useable areas to speak of (almost all "parks" are in inaccessible mountainous areas unsuitable commercial real estate, or in strips of wasteland next to freeways accessible only by cars). It has high tariffs and numerous official and unofficial barriers to imports of any kind, even ones that are purely cultural, including a requirement to screen a certain percentage of domestic movies.

"transforming the previously murky atmosphere into one of outstanding cleanness."

Seoul's atmosphere is clean only in comparison to Chinese cities like Beijing. This is in part due to past and continuing government support of the automobile industry flatly encouraging people to buy cars, and dismantlement and neglect of the pedestrian infrastructure. Pedestrian crossings have been removed on a large number of Seoul's roads to be replaced by underground underpasses, or above ground overpasses, both of which requiring the ascending of a large number of stairs. Every apartment complex comes with a large parking lot encouraging more car use. Fuel prices on diesel fuel are also much lower than on gasoline, resulting in further fouling of the air. As a result, Seoul's skies are usually murky gray and smoggy in color, and are very seldom blue.

"the skyline of Seoul is also quite amazing. Many notable buildings include the Korea Finance Building, Namsan Tower, the World Trade Centre, the 6-skyscraper residence Tower Palace, the Star Tower, IPark Apartment, and the various high-rise office buildings dominate Seoul's skyline. The number of high-rise buildings in Seoul is the most abundant in Asia after cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore"

I think the picture you have included with your article of Seoul's unimpressive skyline reveals what a blatant exagerration this is. Seoul's actual skyline consists mostly of cheaply constructed apartment buildings all of 15 stories in height. The city is very short in comparison to tall cities like Hong Kong or Singapore, has no real downtown or center, and certainly has no abundance of high rise buildings.

BTW, please do not listen to the Korea Information Service as they are very unlikely to be well versed or to have consulted historians or texts on this matter.

Early Korean kingdoms, especially Shilla, were deep believers in Buddhism, and it is entirely possible that the name "Sravasti" was transliterated into "Seorabeol" and later evolved into "Seoul." At any rate, the information that they have provided you is not sufficient as refutation of the theory regarding the city's name.

Also, reference to the "Yi dynasty" is commonly made in English historical texts so as to avoid confusion with the ancient Joseon period, and as such, is not grounds for controversy except by chauvinists.

• • I took out the 'playing a special role as the greatest metropolis to ever rise from the ashes of a former colony and a war-torn nation', since many cities could lay claim to that title, including Mexico City and New York. I also toned down the 'beacon of the East Asian economy' part a bit. Not sure what to do about the 'global city' appelation, since I don't know what the standard definition of a 'global city' is. Zonath 16:16, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

• • It seems that this article contained exaggerations before. However, above comments by an anonymous contributer is excessively deprecating and emotional and thus contain personal POV in itself. Any effort to improve articles must be appreciated, but such emotional and very offending comments as "poorest selection of foreign restaurants," "resembles government propaganda," "blatant exaggeration," and "do not listen to Korea Information Service as they are very unlikely to be well versed or to have consulted historians or texts on this matter" are unacceptable.
  • I feel I have to say something about the restaurant matter especially. I believe there is no standard format for "evaluating" restaurants. However, one can have a fairly good idea of the quality of a restaurant by looking at the amount of investments and care put into the restaurant. Koreans love food; you can almost see restaurants in almost every commercial building in Seoul and other urban areas. Traditional Korean food is loved the most, but foreign food is well loved, too. American, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, and Mongolian (Shabu-Shabu) are most popular. (Sorry if I forgot to mention others!) Many restaurants make efforts to keep authentic taste; they invite master chefs from mainland countries to teach Korean chefs and cook in Korean restaurants temporarily. Recently in Seoul, I ate sushi made by a Japanese master with thirty years of experience. Many regional, small Chinese restaurants have "fast-food" version of Chinese food; however, it is not very difficult to find authentic Chinese food restaurant. Certainly, there is a good variety of quality food in Seoul.
  • It is true that Seoul does not have "tall" buildings as many as it should have considering the fact that much of South Korea's economical, governmental activities are based in Seoul. However, that is simply because the government is strongly discouraging construction of tall buildings due to the presence of US army in Seoul. It has been predicted that US army will evacuate from Seoul soon, and the city is said to have planned to make a grand park in the place, rivaling Central Park in size. In addition, the mayor has promised to contruct an opera house.
  • To the anonymous writer, I very appreciate your efforts to provide correct information. I agree that Seoul is not clean and Seoul does not have "amazing skyline." But please be careful in choosing vocabulary because your comments can influence people's view on Seoul greatly. Let's not be emotional; all we need is the drive to tell the truth to people, which you very well seem to have. :) --Hychu (Above four paragraphs are written by me)

Meaning of 漢

the city has been known instead as 漢城 (read as Hancheng in Chinese, Hanseong in Korean), an old name of the city which can be interpreted as meaning "big city" (but Chinese people rarely relate to this meaning, as the character "Han" has a lot of meanings)

Is this correct? I don't know about Korean, but as far as I know, in Japanese at least, this character never means "big". Does anyone know more about the origins of Seoul's hanja names? It seems like Seoul being close to Han China and/or sitting on the Han River would be more likely sources of the names 漢陽 and 漢城 ... does anyone have more information? CES 13:37, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it ever means big. The usual meanings of han- even in Korean, are "1" (hansi 1 o'clock), limit かぎり(限), done した～ or Korea (韓). The naming of the capital with the character for Han China was likely due to deference to the Chinese emperors, mentioned for example in the Joseon Dynasty article, whereupon China gives Korea full support. KittySaturn 12:58, 2005 Feb 21 (UTC)

I don't know for sure. But I always thought 漢城 was named after the river in the region. Kowloonese 09:36, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

But the Hanseong name actually precedes Joseon, and appears to have originated in the Baekje period. A connection with the river, and perhaps ultimately with the Han commanderies, seems logical. -- Visviva 07:49, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It must be Korean term, not Sino-Korean hanja. 한 in archaic Korean language meant "great" or "big." See Hangul#Names --Puzzlet Chung 09:59, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I suppose indeed that if "han" had meant great in old Korean, then it is a good reason why it was Hanseong. However it indeed had the Hanja and by the Hanja it wouldn't be big city. But the information is interesting and could be thrown in, in my opinion. KittySaturn 22:26, 2005 Feb 26 (UTC)

Hanyang, the name which precedes Hanseong means 'north of River Han'. Han, the name of the river is widely believed to have originated from old Korean meaning 'big' or 'great'. Its trace can still be found in modern Korean such as in the case of 'hana' which means number one. Including the regions by which the River Han passes, southern part of Korean penninsula was often dubbed as "Three Hans", or just "Han". This naming also has to do with the old Korean word Han, since its use can be traced back to the time before sinicization. In conclusion, it could be said that the name 漢城 has something to do with the River Han and the ancient region of Han or Three Hans. In addition, the sinicized form of the ancient Korean word Han varies; 韓, 漢, 汗--locomo314 11:18, 2006 Aug 6 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Alert:

The "Popular Tourist Sites" and "Where To Shop" sections also appear at[4]. As this page on the same website states that work on that site is not under a public license, it should probably not be in the article unless the one who posted it was the original holder, or else had permission to do so (which really should have been noted somewhere). I'm a bit unclear on how to proceed at this point, since it was only part of the article which was copied, and not the entire thing, and don't really want to see this page disappear under an infringement notice. Any help here? --Zonath 12:09, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Reverted to pre-copvio version per instructions on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. --Duk 16:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration?

This article has been nominated as a possible Collaboration of the Month on WP:Korea. If you would like to see it improved, please cast your vote here.

Area and Metro Population

There's no way that Seoul's area is only 607km². Incheon's is given as 900-something, and Incheon is clearly smaller, both in population and area, than Seoul is. Would someone please find out the correct number and rectify this?

As an aside, no reputable source I can find puts Seoul's metropolitan area at 20-something million. This seems to be based, as I understand it, upon South Korean government figures? I don't know what that entails or what their methodology is, but I'm inclined to suggest that more useful numbers probably come from the UN Population Division, which put Seoul's urban area at 9.7 million. There are often discrepancies between the UN's figures for an urban area and those that the country itself has come up with. For instance, the UN's urban area figures give New York's population at 18.3 million in 2003, and by adding outlying county populations (some of which, although used by the US in the (now-obsolete) CMSA, really have no business in a calculation of New York's metro area) using the US's own figures, the discrepancy is less than 4 million, at about 22 million people. This is notable, because the US has been known to inflate their metropolitan areas, for example considering Atlantic City as part of Philadelphia's metro area, despite being separated by about 70 miles of farmland. The UN figures are rather more realistic. --Vladtheinhaler 13:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The definition of a city seems to be different from western countries. From what I understand, if the population of a gun (county) raises over 150,000 ppl, the whole gun becomes a si (city). It doesn't matter, if it is one contiguous town or if there are several settlements within the area. See Subdivisions of South Korea. That's why Incheon is that big: "The city boundaries include an area of 964.53 km², of which 21 percent is rice paddies and another 44 percent is forested.". The area of Seoul 605.52 Km² according to [5]. And the city itself has over slihtly 10 Million residents, so a definition with the metropolian area with just 9.7 million residents seems not very relieable to me. Incheon (2.4 million), Suwon (1.1 million), Seongnam (1 million), Goyang (1 million) and bucheon (0.8 million) are the biggest cities within the Seoul metropolian area. Don't know, how big the distance between these cities is. -- IGEL 19:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

"Kim il-Sung City"?

If Seoul had been conquered by the Commies in the Korean War, would it have been renamed Kim il-Sung City much like how Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after their commies conquered it? User:Bjornar, if you read this, you have access to an authoritative source so please answer here. --Shultz 22:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Gaming in South Korea

The mention of the gaming scene in South Korea doesn't look like it belongs in this article. Of course gaming is big in Seoul, but what's described there is clearly a nation-wide trend rather than something Seoul specific. Something like "As with the rest of South Korea, online gaming and professional gaming are a major form of recreation." will suffice. 82.123.152.66 23:30, 11 November 2005 (UTC)