Gwangmyeong
South Korea · Asia
About Gwangmyeong
Gwangmyeong is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It borders Seoul to the east, north and northeast, Anyang to the southeast, Siheung to the southwest, and Bucheon to the northwest. It is home to one of the world's largest IKEA stores at 59,000 square meters (640,000 square feet), along with a large Costco store and a Lotte Premium Outlet.
Gwangmyeong area was part of the old (or original) Siheung County as with Yeongdeungpo, Guro, and Geumcheon areas. It belonged to West (서면, seo-myeon) and South townships (남면, nam-myeon) of original Siheung County. In 1914, the two townships were merged into West township of "expanded" Siheung County.
In 1963, the northern part of Gwangmyeong (at that time, the northern part of West Township in Siheung County) area was merged into an expanded Seoul (i.e. districts for urban planning in Seoul. 서울시 도시계획구역 seo-ul-si do-si-gae-hoeg-gu-yeog) as with Gwacheon (at that time Gwacheon was a township in Siheung County) and Sindo township of Goyang County (now parts of the city Goyang, which borders Seoul). The neighbourhood of Gwangmyeong (Gwangmyeong-dong) and Cheolsan (Cheolsan-dong) were...
Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.