Seoul

Seoul, officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. With surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province, Seoul forms the heart of the Seoul Capital Area, home to roughly half of the country's population. Seoul is ranked as the fourth largest metropolitan economy in the world and is larger than London and Paris.

Quotes

A

As “Paris is France,” so Seoul may be said to be Korea, for it is the centre from which nearly every thing for the country either originates or is disseminated. Officers ruling over country districts usually have their “house in town,” and expect to spend a portion, at least, of their time within the walls of the capital. While some of the provincial capitals are said to contain more people and to be more celebrated for certain reasons, Seoul is the home of the King and the Mecca of his faithful subjects.
- Horace Newton Allen, Korean Tales (1889)

B

Far from being settled, this bright part of Korea screams defiance. And that blast of light, just a short drive from the demilitarized zone, is its defiant capital.
- Michael Breen, The New Koreans: The Story of a Nation (2017), New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 20

H

As Paris was for France, Seoul was not simply Korea's largest town. It was Korea. Government was a great vortex summoning men rapidly into it, placing them briefly near the summitry of ambition and then sweeping them out, often ruthless into execution or exile.
- Gregory Henderson, Korea: The Politics of the Vortex (1968)

I

The road to the Seoul Detention Center has a peculiar stillness in a Korean summer afternoon. It is a place where time seems to slow down, as if the air itself were aware of the stories carried within those walls. On August 6, accompanied by Hans Noot of Human Rights Without Frontiers and Thierry Valle of CAP‑LC, I walked once more along that familiar path. I had been there before, during the long ordeal of the Unification Church’s Mother Han, who now spends her days in a hospital bed. The building, with its severe geometry and muted colors, has become a reluctant witness to the suffering of elderly religious leaders.
Before entering, we stopped where the members of Shincheonji maintain their vigil for their detained leader, Chairman Lee Man-hee. They stand in quiet shifts, day after day, under the changing sky of Seoul. There is no spectacle in their presence. No slogans, no banners, no raised voices. Only prayer. A soft murmur of devotion that seems to rise from the road itself. Some utter prayers; others close their eyes, as if listening to something only they can hear. Their perseverance has the quality of a ritual, a rhythm of faith that does not falter. Sharing a moment of prayer with them felt like stepping into a stream of collective hope. Not to be moved by the gentleness of their determination was impossible.
- Massimo Introvigne, "A Visit to the Seoul Detention Center and the Difficult Path of Religious Liberty in Korea", Bitter Winter (August 10, 2026)

K

What Seoul represents to [South] Koreans is above and beyond all our hopes, aspirations, and collective imagination. It is the flagship of our nation.
- Wan-ju Kim, Mayor's Greetings (October 2004)

Lying between chill sheets that night in my icy room, I tried to organize my first impressions of Seoul. In the back of my mind I felt that the place reminded me of somewhere I had been before. The impression of gloom and darkness and wildness could not be dispelled ... and everywhere there was the curiously clanging, grumbling tone of Korean speech. From time to time I was reminded of northern Japanese towns in wintertime–Akita, Aomori, Niigata, or Sapporo. But then it flashed into my mind that what Seoul really reminded me of was the Arctic: the bare, freezing desolations on the outskirts of Kiruna and Narvik.
- James Kirkup, as quoted in The New Koreans: The Story of a Nation (2017), by Michael Breen, p. 40

M

It has already become easier to imagine Seoul with a Kim Il Sung statue than to imagine Pyongyang without one.
- Brian Reynolds Myers, "League Confederation Goes Outer-Track" (24 September 2018), Sthele Press

The twin obsessions of the foreign press corps in Seoul are a) North Korea and b) K-Pop, K-Film, K-Anything-But-Politics.
- Brian Reynolds Myers, "On Foreign Coverage of South Korea’s Response to the Coronavirus" (18 March 2020), Sthele Press

External links

Encyclopedic article on Seoul on Wikipedia