History
Seoul History Series · Part 4 of 7
Seoul History Part 4 — How Seoul Crossed the River: The Making of Gangnam
Sixty years ago, Gangnam wasn’t even part of Seoul. Now a single square meter of it can sell for more than most people earn in a year.
Seoul’s most expensive addresses — Apgujeong, Banpo, Jamsil, Daechi — all sit south of the Han River. In 2024, a single square meter in parts of Gangnam can exceed ₩50 million, roughly $35,000. Among the highest real estate prices in Asia.
North of the river — Gangbuk — holds a different kind of weight: Hannam-dong, Pyeongchang-dong, the historic center near Gyeongbokgung. Old money, old streets, old hills.
In 1960, almost none of this existed. The land south of the Han River was classified as Gyeonggi Province — not Seoul. What happened over the next three decades is one of the most deliberate acts of city-building in modern Asian history.
01
The Pressure That Forced the Crossing
In 1945, Seoul’s population was roughly 900,000. By 1970 — just 25 years later — it had reached 5.43 million. The city had more than quintupled. The old city north of the river had no room left. Hillside slums spread across every slope. Roads were at a standstill. Housing was structurally inadequate.
The solution was not subtle. Cross the river, and build an entirely new city on the other side.
~900,000 — post-liberation baseline.
Ceasefire. War refugees and rural migrants flood the capital.
2.44 million — north bank near saturation.
5.43 million — crossing the river becomes unavoidable.
02
The Plan — A State-Directed Project
The development of Gangnam was not organic. It was driven by the Park Chung-hee government (1961–1979) with two simultaneous objectives: relieve the overcrowded north, and establish the southern anchor of a new industrial corridor running from Seoul to Busan.
Seoul’s administrative boundary expands. Land south of the Han River — previously Gyeonggi Province — is absorbed into Seoul. Gangnam becomes Seoul.
Gyeongbu Expressway breaks ground — Seoul to Busan. Gangnam is set as the northern terminus, becoming the gateway to the entire industrial corridor.
Hannam Bridge opens — the first permanent road connection between Gangbuk and Gangnam. Before this, crossing the Han River required a ferry.
Yeongdong District land readjustment begins. Rice paddies are surveyed, divided, and converted into the grid street system that defines Gangnam today.
Seoul Olympics. Jamsil and Songpa transformed. The world watches Gangnam on television for the first time.
03
The Move That Changed Everything — 15 Elite Schools Relocated
Infrastructure was built. Land was cleared. Roads were laid. But no one wanted to move. In the mid-1970s, Gangnam remained largely empty — a grid of new streets with almost no residents.
The government made a single policy decision that changed everything. Beginning in 1976 with Gyeonggi High School, Seoul’s most prestigious secondary schools were forcibly relocated from the historic center — the old city north of the river — to Gangnam. By the late 1980s, 15 elite schools had made the move, including Whimoon High School, Sookmyung Girls’ High School, Seoul High School, and Baejai High School.
In Korea, secondary school placement has historically determined university entry, which determines career trajectory. Moving the schools was not an education policy. It was a real estate policy.
The result was immediate. Middle-class families with school-age children relocated south. Residents brought commerce. Commerce brought more residents. Within a decade, Gangnam had achieved critical mass.
Why Daechi-dong Is What It Is Today
Daechi-dong — the neighborhood housing the highest concentration of private tutoring academies, or hagwon, in the world — is a direct legacy of the 1976 relocation. The schools moved. Families followed. The tutoring industry followed the families. Fifty years later, the original policy decision is still shaping daily life.
04
Gangnam Was Built in Phases
The Gangnam that exists today was assembled over roughly three decades. Each sub-district arrived on its own timeline.
Gangnam-gu & Seocho-gu. The original Gangnam grid. Apgujeong Hyundai apartment complex breaks ground — the first high-rise residential buildings south of the river. Banpo and Jamwon estates follow.
Jamsil — built on a former island. Jamsil was an island in the Han River until the 1970s. A reclamation project rerouted the river’s southern channel, connecting the island to the mainland. The land where Lotte World and Lotte Tower now stand was open water until the late 1970s.
Administrative formalization. Gangnam-gu becomes its own independent district in 1979. Seocho-gu and Songpa-gu follow in the early 1980s. The 1981 Olympic bid triggers a second wave of infrastructure investment across the entire south bank.
Seoul Olympics. Olympic Stadium, Olympic Park, and the Athletes’ Village are built in the Jamsil–Songpa corridor — in significant part a showcase for the new city built south of the river.
05
Teheran-ro — The Address of Korean Business
The 3.7km boulevard running from Gangnam Station to Samsung Station is called Teheran-ro. The name comes from a 1977 sister-city agreement between Seoul and Tehran — Teheran-ro in Seoul, Seoul-ro in Tehran.
By the late 1990s, following the IT venture boom that emerged from the IMF recovery, Teheran-ro had become the central address of Korean corporate life. Samsung, Hyundai, SK, and LG all maintain major presences here. The country’s leading law firms, private equity offices, and management consultancies line the boulevard.
Gangnam is where Korea’s education system and Korea’s business establishment physically converge. That combination — elite schools and corporate headquarters within walking distance of each other — is what sustains the area’s property premium, decade after decade.
06
What the Development Cost
Every major Gangnam development project required prior residents to be displaced. People living in the informal settlements along the Han River banks and in the hillside communities of Gangbuk were relocated — largely without adequate compensation — to peripheral areas outside the city boundary.
A significant number were moved to the Seongnam area east of Seoul. In 1971, the displacement reached a breaking point. Tens of thousands of residents, having been relocated to undeveloped land with no infrastructure and no legal title to their plots, organized and refused to leave. The resulting confrontation — known as the Gwangju Danji Incident, also called the Seongnam Civil Rights Movement — was the largest civil uprising in Korea between the 1960 student revolution and the 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement.
Gangnam’s rise is a genuine urban achievement. The displacement that made it possible is part of the same story. Both are true. Neither cancels the other.
07
What Travelers Can See Today
The physical history of Gangnam is still readable in the city, if you know where to look.
Apgujeong Rodeo Street
Subway Line 3, Apgujeong Station. The commercial center of 1980s–90s Gangnam. Now Seoul’s medical tourism district — plastic surgery clinics occupy almost every building. Side streets have independent cafés, vintage shops, and galleries worth exploring.
Teheran-ro
Subway Line 2, Gangnam Station to Samsung Station. The physical address of Korean corporate power. Walk it during the day to understand the scale of the business district. The night view of the boulevard is one of Seoul’s more striking streetscapes.
Olympic Park & Jamsil
Subway Line 5, Olympic Park Station, or Line 2, Jamsil Station. The 1988 Olympics infrastructure is fully open. The sculpture park is one of Seoul’s best green spaces. Inside the grounds: Mongchon Toseong, a Baekje earthen fortress from the 4th century, sitting quietly within the 1988 Olympic perimeter. Two thousand years, one park.
Han River Park — Banpo & Jamwon
Subway Line 3, Express Bus Terminal Station. The Banpo Bridge Rainbow Fountain holds a Guinness record as the world’s longest bridge fountain. Evening, with the city skyline behind it, is when it’s worth seeing. Riverfront picnics with food delivery are a Seoul institution — entirely locals, entirely relaxed.
Lotte World Tower
Subway Line 2, Jamsil Station. 555 meters, standing on land that was a river channel until the 1970s reclamation. The observation deck gives the clearest aerial read of how the Han River divides the city — Gangbuk and Gangnam laid out below in full.
Up Next in the Series
Part 5 — The Miracle on the Han River
In 1953, Korea’s GDP per capita was $67. By the 1980s, it was exporting semiconductors and hosting the Olympics. How a country rebuilt itself from almost nothing.