On Jan. 16 Prime Minister Kim Min-seok announced a plan to merge Daejeon with South Chungcheong Province and Gwangju with South Jeolla Province. The government would provide up to 40 trillion won ($27.3 billion) in financial incentives over the next four years to these newly formed “integrated special cities.” The cities would be given greater administrative autonomy and priority in the relocation of public institutions in the hope of revitalizing local economies.
The plan is a key part of President Lee Jae Myung’s balanced national development strategy and aligns with his broader “5 Regions + 3 Special Zones” national development framework aimed at stimulating growth in regional hubs through corporate subsidies, tax breaks and streamlined regulations. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea plans to pass the relevant legislation by February to enable the election of the first integrated city mayors during the local elections in June.
If implemented, the plan would make major changes to the map of South Korea while opening the door for other regions and cities, such as those in the southeast Yeongnam region, to merge. The plan raises interesting questions about how best to organize subnational administrative divisions in South Korea and elsewhere.
First, why now? When South Korea was founded in 1948, it maintained the provincial boundaries from the Japanese occupation, which largely reflected the “Eight Provinces” of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). As the capital, Seoul was designated a “special metropolitan city,” but all other cities were part of the province in which they were located. This began to change in the 1960s, as industrialization caused the population of regional hubs to explode. Busan became an independent city in 1963, followed by Daegu in 1981, Gwangju in 1986, Daejeon in 1989 and Ulsan in 1997. These cities were upgraded to what is now termed “metropolitan city” status soon after crossing the 1 million population threshold.
By the late 1990s, the population of Seoul and Busan began to decline. Demographic projections at the time showed other cities would soon start to decline, suggesting that cities over 1 million would eventually drop below that level. In addition, upgrading more cities would weaken the surrounding province as the population decline accelerated.
Things have now reversed. The depopulation that long plagued the provinces has now reached the cities. Economic hollowing out is spreading as the population continues to decline. The idea of merging cities with provinces, then, reflects this new reality and the need for both to pool resources in the hope of slowing the decline.
Second, what does it mean? Like most countries, the subnational administrative boundaries in South Korea reflect historical boundaries. Many of those boundaries reflect geographical features such as mountains and rivers. Population centers had little influence on boundaries since the population was overwhelmingly rural.
As the urban population grew rapidly in the 1960s, cities moved to the center of discussions about subnational administrative boundaries as they were separated from their surrounding provinces. To work as independent entities, the cities needed to be large, combining the densely populated urban core with an exurban fringe.
The expansion of KTX and highway networks in the 2000s opened the door for the development of satellite cities in the provinces next to the metropolitan cities in the 2010s. The emergence of these larger metropolitan areas caused a shift in awareness of the metropolitan area as a driver of regional growth. The development of regional commuter rail in Busan in the 2010s and most recently in Daegu reflects this shift. The focus on metropolitan areas explains why the name of the proposed integrated special cities combines that of the metropolitan city and the surrounding province. The merger of Gwangju and South Jeolla Province would thus create “Gwangju-South Jeolla Integrated City.”
This recognition of metropolitan areas as growth engines is not unique to Korea. In 1973, the American geographer George Etzel Pearcy proposed a 38-state map of the US with each of the new states centered on a major metropolitan area. The map stirred interest at the time and highlighted the reality that, like South Korea now, metropolitan areas had become the driver of regional growth by the 1970s. State boundaries, like city and provincial boundaries in Korea today, have become largely artificial.
The plan is forward-looking because it focuses on the potential of metropolitan areas in stimulating regional development amid continuing depopulation. At the same time, it respects the historic boundaries of provinces. Over time, the word “province” will disappear from most place names, but the unique historical names will live on.