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Guryong Village

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Guryong Village
구룡마을
Shanty town
Guryong in 2013
Guryong in 2013
Guryong Village is located in Seoul
Guryong Village
Guryong Village
Location within Seoul
Coordinates: 37°28′35″N 127°03′51″E / 37.4765°N 127.0643°E / 37.4765; 127.0643
CountrySouth Korea
RegionGyeonggi
CitySeoul
DongGaepo-dong
Settled1985
Founded1988
Demolished2026
Area
 • Total
28 ha (70 acres)

Guryong Village (Korean: 구룡마을) was a shanty town in Seoul, South Korea. It was located just across a six-lane motorway from Dogok-dong of the affluent Gangnam District.[1][2][3]

Guryong and other shanty towns like it are known as daldongnae (Korean: 달동네) or moon villages, so named because they were often formed on hillsides and were therefore closer to the moon.[4] Guryong was often called the last remaining moon village, referred to as "the last slum in Seoul's glitzy Gangnam district",[5] "the last shanty town in Gangnam",[1] and "the last remaining urban slum in Seoul"[6] in articles published in 2014 and 2015. This claim was treated skeptically at the time due to the continued existence of at least two other notable areas: Baeksa Village in the northeast of Nowon District, which began redevelopment in 2025[7]; and Gaemi Village in Hongje-dong on the slope of Mt. Inwang, which was turned into a mural village and still stands today.[8]

The village first arose around the early 1980s, as residents were evicted from other parts of Seoul to make way for the city's rapid development ahead of the 1988 Olympic Games. It was an illegal settlement at the time, as the residents were squatting on privately owned land.[9]

The village persisted over the decades, despite multiple efforts to resettle the residents. Beginning in the mid-2010s, the Seoul government was gradually moving residents out of the area, and offering them apartments in the area or elsewhere at significantly reduced rents. By 2019, it was reported that 406 of 1,107 households (36.7%) had been relocated.[10]

Following the conditional approval of redevelopment plans, demolition on the village began in August 2026. Less than ten residents remain on the site, against three of whom the Seoul Housing & Urban Development Corporation has filed a criminal complaint. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2027 and be completed in 2031.[11][12][13]

History

[edit]

Guryong Village was one of the youngest moon villages in Seoul. It rose up around the early 1980s when city authorities evicted thousands of people, sometimes violently, from slums in central Seoul in order to redevelop the area in preparation for the 1988 Olympic Games. Guryong Mountain, from which the village takes its name, was designated as part of Seoul's greenbelt, and it gradually turned into a refuge for many of those evicted, who became squatters at the site.[14][15]

The exact number of inhabitants remains uncertain, made difficult by an initial lack of official registration and fluctuations over time.[3] When the village was first settled, there were around 8,000 people living in 2,000 households.[9] In 2005, it was reported that the area had 4,000 inhabitants.[3] In 2011, its inhabitants received temporary residence cards,[16] and between 2012 and 2014 the population was given as 2,500 people.[1][17] Following increased relocation efforts, a 2022 estimate placed the remaining population at around 600 people.[18]

Firefighters battling a 2014 fire in the village

In 2014, it was reported that the area the village sat on was around 286,929 square meters (about 70 acres).[19] There were estimated to be around 1,200 to 2,000 impromptu structures on the land,[20][19] with the area of the individual houses estimated to be around 16 to 99 m2 (170 to 1,070 sq ft) each.[3]

Due to the lack of enforced safety standards, the village was struck by multiple fires.[6] Among them, a fire in January 2023 destroyed more than 60 homes and forced around 500 residents to evacuate.[10][21] Another fire in January 2026 forced the evacuation of 258 residents.[22][23]

Guryong acquired a number of amenities over the years, including a post office,[16] a kindergarten and church, a security service, and even utilities like water, gas and electricity, for which payments were communal.[3][16] Regardless, everyday life remained difficult; with residents struggling to sending their children to school while not having a permanent address,[24] and very few of the households able to receive the welfare benefits for which they qualified.[3] The infrastructure was also poor; the huts were built from scavenged materials, the streets and alleyways deteriorated rapidly in inclement weather, and many of the utility lines within the village were constructed by the residents themselves.[14] The last remaining residents were primarily impoverished elderly people who earned very little for jobs such as scavenging recycling to sell or delivering takeout food.[3][25][26]

Plans to demolish the village

[edit]

In the past few decades, there were a number of efforts to demolish the village and relocate its residents, but progress was slow due to disagreements on how to proceed and how to deal with the village's residents.[1][19][27][28] In 1991, a proposal to redevelop the land was interrupted by a real estate scandal in the Suseo-dong area.[9]

In 2015, it was proposed that the government would demolish Guryong and arrange subsidized housing for its former residents.[5] In 2016, the Seoul Metropolitan Government designated the area an official district and announced a series of efforts to relocate residents and redevelop the area.[29] In 2019, it was reported that 406 out of 1,107 households (36.7%) had been relocated.[10][30] In 2020, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it had approved an action plan that was set to be completed by 2025. As part of the plan, the village would be gradually demolished and apartments would be built in its place, with a drastically reduced rent to be offered to villagers who choose to live in these apartments.[29]

In July 2026, city authorities announced that redevelopment plans had been "conditionally approved" for a high-rise residential complex and a public housing complex on the site, laid out in such a way as to preserve the natural environment of Guryong Mountain and the nearby Daemo Mountain as much as possible. The city's goal is to begin construction in 2027 and complete it by 2031, pending final approval of the redevelopment plans in the second half of 2026.[11] Demolition began in August 2026, with around ten residents still refusing to leave and demanding compensation for the loss of their homes.[12] Later that month the Seoul Housing & Urban Development Corporation filed a criminal complaint against three of those residents, all elderly men, for illegally occupying the land and obstructing redevelopment.[13]

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See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 Blason, Jo (14 July 2014). "Gangnam, shanty-style: life in Seoul's Guryong Village slum – in pictures". The Guardian.
  2. ↑ Karen Bell (2014). Achieving Environmental Justice: A Cross-National Analysis. Policy Press. pp. 87–89. ISBN 978-1-4473-0594-1.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Young-yu, Yang; Yong-whan, Chung; Dong-ki, Min (12 February 2005). "A Village the City Ignores". Global Action on Aging. Archived from the original on 26 May 2015.
  4. ↑ Patowary, Kaushik. "The Moon Villages of South Korea". www.amusingplanet.com. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  5. 1 2 Park, Ju-Min (4 May 2015). "Go inside the last surviving slum of Seoul's glitzy Gangnam district before South Korea demolishes it". Reuters.
  6. 1 2 Kyung-min, Lee (5 December 2014). "Seoul to develop shanty town in Gangnam". The Korea Times.
  7. ↑ Lee, Seol-young (2025-05-29). "'Baeksa Village' Transformed After 60 Years... Into a Luxury Complex Embracing Bulamsan". First-Class Business Newspaper Financial News. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  8. ↑ Bandun, Ron (9 March 2021). "Counting down Seoul's last moon villages". The Korea Times. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 박, 정환 (2022-10-19). "첫삽도 못뜬채 멈춰 버린 '구룡마을'…개발 30년史 살펴보니" ['Guryong Village', Stopped Before Even Lifting the Shovel... Examining Its 30 Year History]. 뉴데일리 (in Korean). Retrieved 2023-08-04.
  10. 1 2 3 Yeung, Jessie; Bae, Gawon; Chen, Heather (2023-01-20). "500 evacuated as massive fire breaks out in one of Seoul's last slums | CNN". CNN. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  11. 1 2 Kim, Bo-yeon (2026-07-22). "Seoul approves Guryong Village rebuild into 2,120-home complex by 2031". CHOSUNBIZ. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  12. 1 2 Yoo, Joonha (2026-08-05). "Excavators return as Guryong Village redevelopment moves forward". Aju Press. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  13. 1 2 Yang, Ji-Hye (2026-08-13). "SH Files Complaint Against 3 Guryong Village Fire Victims Over Redevelopment". Seoul Economic Daily. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  14. 1 2 Sang-Hun, Choe; Lee, Chang W. (2026-03-29). "'Nowhere Else to Go': The Squatters in the Richest Part of Seoul". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  15. ↑ 최남현 (2011-05-02). "[Editorial] Guryong Village". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  16. 1 2 3 Williamson, Lucy (22 March 2012). "South Korean shanty town on sought-after real estate". BBC News.
  17. ↑ Taylor, Kirsty (8 February 2012). "Coals to keep Guryong shantytown warm". The Korea Herald.
  18. ↑ Choi, Jae-hee (2022-09-26). "Seoul 'moon village' becomes tourist trap". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  19. 1 2 3 Eun-Jee, Park (21 July 2014). "Redevelopment of a Gangnam slum languishes". Korea JoongAng Daily.
  20. ↑ Hyo-Sung, Ahn (13 November 2013). "Fire exacerbates split in Guryong". Korea JoongAng Daily.
  21. ↑ Shin, Hyonhee; Kim, Daewoung (2023-01-20). "Hundreds evacuated as blaze erupts in slum next to Seoul's posh Gangnam district". Reuters. Retrieved 2023-03-10.
  22. ↑ Park, Minwoo (2026-01-16). "Major blaze extinguished in deprived area of South Korea's Gangnam district". Reuters.
  23. ↑ "Fire breaks out in one of Seoul's last-remaining shanty towns". AP News. 2026-01-16. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  24. ↑ Yoo, Joonha (2026-07-15). "The Story of Guryong Village: A Korean Dream in an Unlikely Place". Aju Press. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  25. ↑ Yoo, Reera (4 May 2015). "Seoul to Demolish the Last Surviving Slum Near the Ritzy Gangnam District". KoreAm. Archived from the original on 20 May 2015.
  26. ↑ "The Slum Next Door to Gangnam Exposes South Korea's Wealth Gap". Bloomberg.com. 2020-12-17. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  27. ↑ Da-ye, Kim (18 June 2014). "Clash looms over developing shanty town in Seoul". The Korea Times.
  28. ↑ "Guryong Village turns into battle zone". 6 February 2015.
  29. 1 2 "서울시, 개포동 구룡마을 실시계획 인가… 사업추진 속도". ChosunBiz (in Korean). 2020-06-07. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  30. ↑ 강남구청. "개포 구룡마을 도시개발사업". MEMEWE GANGNAM 강남구청 (in Korean). Retrieved 2021-02-14.
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