Seoul
South Korea's capital and the Han River megacity
Seoul concentrates an extraordinary share of a nation in a single basin: roughly half of all South Koreans live in the Capital Area that radiates from the banks of the Han River, some twenty-six million people in all. It is a city of relentless energy and connectivity, where ancient palaces sit beneath neon shopping districts, where the world's fastest internet feeds a global wave of K-pop and television drama, and where mountains rise abruptly between dense neighborhoods.
The city occupies a broad valley bisected by the wide Han River and ringed by granite peaks, with Bukhansan's rocky summits forming a national park on its northern edge. The river divides the older districts north of the water from the gleaming, planned wealth of Gangnam to the south. Cold, dry winters and hot, monsoon-soaked summers shape the year, and the heavily fortified border with North Korea lies only about fifty kilometers away.
Seoul became the capital of the Joseon dynasty in 1394, when the new rulers laid out palaces, shrines, and a city wall against the hills. Colonized by Japan from 1910 and devastated in the Korean War, the city was rebuilt with astonishing speed during the decades of rapid industrialization that turned South Korea into a high-tech economy. Today it is the political, financial, and creative engine of the country, headquarters to global conglomerates and the cultural capital of the Korean wave sweeping the world.