A FIRST CLASS ‘GREEN’ CITY

SUNCHEON, SOUTH KOREA – A FIRST CLASS ‘GREEN’ CITY


Suncheon City: The 2013 Garden Expo Team


Located in the southern part of South Korea, Suncheon City is a small-sized urban-rural city with a population of 270,000. The city is spread over an area of 907㎢ of which 70% is mountainous.
It is a popular place for living as it offers spectacular nature (mountains, fields, lakes and the sea) It also offers a vast array of local products.

As an eco-city, Suncheon is blessed with three rivers, the Dongcheon, Okcheon and Isacheon, all three are running through the downtown area.
Suncheon Bay (a protected wetland area just outside the city) is accredited as one of the world's five shore-wetlands. In 2006 it was registered with the Ramsar Convention and became a first for South Korea. Within Korea it was designated as 'Beautiful National Site No.41.'
On October 26, 2008 Suncheon hosted the Ramsar International NGO Conference. More than 150 people from 50 different countries participated.

Suncheon Bay is seen as a natural-ecosystem-treasure. It’s a region formed by a field of reeds that reaches out for more than 21㎢ into the wide foreshore of Korea’s South Sea. It hosts 200 kinds of birds and 120 different species of salt plants. It’s also home to a big variety of fish and shellfish.

Suncheon Bay is a very popular eco tourism destination. As much as 2,600,000 people visit the Bay every year.
Suncheon’s goals are to transform itself into the Ecological Capital of Korea and to be ranked as one of the best green city of the world. To be able to do this the City set clear goals to preserve Suncheon Bay as a natural heritage for future generations.

The City also decided to host the International Garden Expo in 2013. This Expo will focus on green industry development such as solar energy, sustainable garden development and electronic transportation. It hopes that through the Garden Expo it can transform Suncheon Bay from a local tourist attraction into an international, world-class, tourist destination. This, the city hopes will result in an increase of available job opportunities for local women and senior citizens.
The Garden Expo will be held over a period of six months, starting April 20, 2013 and finish on October 20, 2013.


Suncheon is also setting out to enhance the quality of life for its citizens. It started to implement Carbon Level Monitoring Systems so that citizens can benefit from reduced city carbon levels.
Every school in the city, from primary to high school, has started a 1-hour environmental awareness class per week, and on Saturdays, organic flea markets are held in the downtown area. The city is currently in process of developing four huge public parks. This will include the area set aside for the Garden Expo.

As a prominent area of the South Coast of Korea, Suncheon’s goal is to maintain a pleasant urban environment that will correspond positively to climate change caused by global warming. The city seeks to establish sustainable, economic progress by enhancing the skills and abilities of all its citizens. This means the development of progressive health policies, first class global-education, and a supportive, convenient residential environment.

Please join me, and the citizens of Suncheon to step into our ‘garden.’ Together we can make it one of the best ‘green’ places on the planet.