Place:Daejeon, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Daejeon is South Korea's fifth-largest metropolis, with a population of 1.5 million as of 2019. Located in the central region of South Korea alongside forested hills and the Geum River, the city is known both for its technology and research institutions, and for celebrating its natural environment, with most mountains, hot springs, and rivers freely open for public use.^[1] Daejeon serves as a hub of transportation for major rail and road routes, and is approximately 50 minutes from the capital, Seoul, by KTX or SRT high speed rail.

Daejeon is one of South Korea's administration hubs with the Daejeon Government Complex (Other administrative hubs: Seoul, Gwacheon and Sejong City). The Korean administration in the 1980s decided to relocate some of its functions from Seoul, the national capital, to other cities. Currently, 12 national government offices, including Korea Customs Service, Small and Medium Business Administration, Public Procurement Service, National Statistical Office, Military Manpower Administration, Korea Forest Service, Cultural Heritage Administration, and Korean Intellectual Property Office, as well as Patent Court of Korea, are located in Daejeon. Korail, Korea Water Resources Corporation, and Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation are also headquartered in the city.

Daejeon is home to 23 universities and colleges, including KAIST and Chungnam National University. Daejeon has earned its name as "Asia's Silicon Valley" and "high technology city".^[2] The city hosted the Taejon Expo '93 and the International Mathematical Olympiads in 2000. Several important research institutes are based in the city.

Daedeok Innopolis (Daedeok Research and Development Special Zone) is composed of 28 government-funded research institutions, as well as 79 private research institutes with as many as 20,000 researchers. In addition, Daejeon established the World Technopolis Association (WTA) in 1998 with the view of realizing regional development through international cooperation with world science cities. The WTA has grown to have 67 members from 32 countries, and it actively cooperates with many international organizations including UNESCO as its official consultative body.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Human beings first settled in the Daejeon region during the Stone Age. It was occupied and in use as strategic military ground in various times by people such as the Usul-gun of Baekje, Bipung-gun of Silla, and the Hoideok-hyeon, Yuseong-hyeon, Deokjin-hyeon, and Jinjam-hyeon. During the Joseon Kingdom period, it remained occupied by the Hoideok-hyeon and Jinjam-hyeon of Gongju Mokha. In 1895, most of the area was made part of Hoideok-gun and Jinjam-gun, excluding some parts that belonged to Gongju-gun.

The Daejeon area was historically known as Hanbat (한밭), a native Korean term for "large field", during the Joseon Dynasty. "Daejeon" simply means the same thing in Hanja. In the 19th century, Daejeon was also known in English as Kung-tsiou.

Historically, Daejeon was a small village without many residents. However, in 1905, the Gyeongbu Railway began operations from Seoul to Busan, opening a station at Daejeon. In 1926 under the rule of the Japanese government, the Honam Railway was built between Mokpo and Daejeon, transforming the latter into a major transportation hub. Because of its location and proximity to means of transportation, Daejeon grew quickly.

As railroads were laid under Japanese rule, an environment friendly to the Japanese was created, and many Japanese began to settle in Daejeon taking advantage of the opportunity. According to 1910 census data, 58%, or more than half of the 4,350 Daejeon population at the time, were Japanese. In 1925, 56% of the 8,861 people in Daejeon were Japanese. Therefore, Daejeon was one of the cities with great cultural influence of Japanese residents. For example, elderly people who experienced Japanese colonial era pronounce '단무지' (Pickled radish, danmuji) as '닥광/단광'(dakgwang/dangwang), '컵' (cup, keob) as '고뿌' (goffu) and '비닐' (vinyl, binil) as '비니루' (binilu). In addition, '우에시다리' (Uesidari), a representative team division game in Daejeon, was also created at this time and is believed to have been derived from the Japanese word '上(うえ, Ue)' meaning 'up' and the Japanese word '下(した, sita)' meaning 'down'.

In 1932, the capital of Chungnam province was moved from Gongju to Daejeon. During the Korean War, the city was the site of an early major conflict: the Battle of Taejon. Also during the war, the mass graves of civilians killed by South Korean police were discovered near Taejon and reported on by Alan Winnington in his famous anti-war leaflet "I Saw Truth in Korea". Embarrassed by the contents of the leaflet, the British government considered having him executed for treason, though instead decided to make him stateless.

Since then, changes have been made to the city's boundaries. Its official names have evolved, as well. Among the boundary modifications include one that effectively made the nearby town of Daedeok a part of the city in 1983. Then, in the late 1980s, Daejeon was elevated to the status of Special City (Jikhalsi), thus became a separate administrative region from Chungcheongnam-do. In 1995, all South Korean Special Cities were again renamed as Metropolitan Cities, which is reflected in the current official name of Daejeon, Daejeon Metropolitan City (대전광역시).

In 1997, the Daejeon Government Complex was constructed as part of an effort to move some government offices away from the densely populated capital, Seoul. The population of Daejeon increased dramatically as a result. However, with the construction of Sejong Special Self-Governing City in 2013 for the division of capital functions and balanced local development, public institutions that had previously headed to Daejeon were headed to Sejong, and many public institutions in Seoul were also moved to Sejong. With the launch of Sejong City, large-scale development began, resulting in infrastructure construction and large-scale apartment complexes. Sejong was located immediately north of Daejeon, and Daejeon citizens began to outflow to Sejong due to Sejong's sharing of capital functions and large-scale development. As of July 2020, more than 100,000 people were net outflow from Daejeon to Sejong. The population of Daejeon continued to wane from what was 1.54 million at its peak in 2013 to 1.46 million in 2022.

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