page_title: Gunpo
section_title: Promotion to city
hierarchical_section_title: Gunpo / History / Promotion to city
caption_attribution_description: English: Downtown Sanbon, Gunpo, South Korea.
context_page_description: Gunpo, formerly romanized as Kunp'o, is a small city in South Korea's Gyeonggi Province, located south of Seoul in the Seoul National Capital Area. It borders Anyang to the north, Uiwang to the east, and Ansan to the south and west, and is connected to its neighbors and to Seoul by lines 1 and 4 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway. Gunpo is also home to three stops on the Gyeongbu Line, a national railway that links it to the rest of the country. Although 73.2% of the city is greenspace, owing largely to Surisan and various smaller mountains, Gunpo is home to over 286,000 residents in several urban areas. The city's downtown core is Sanbon New Town, a commercial hub which centers on a pedestrian "street of culture" that Gunpo has designated as one of its eight scenic locations.
  Gunpo was promoted from town to city in 1989 due to the rapid urban and industrial growth of Seoul, and large-scale housing projects were immediately begun. Hansei University, a Christian institute of post-secondary learning, is in the city, as are forty-four other public schools and a number of private academies.
context_section_description: In 1989, the rapid industrial growth and urbanization of Seoul prompted the construction of five new cities in the Seoul Capital Area: Gunpo, Anyang, Seongnam, Bucheon, and Goyang. The move was based on a national law which was intended to promote efficient regional management in the face of an increasing demand for administration. Siheung-gun was thus disbanded, and Gunpo-eup was promoted to Gunpo-si (city). Five legal dongs (neighbourhoods) fell under Gunpo's jurisdiction, although some were further sub-divided into numerous administrative dongs—for example, Sanbon-dong was split into Sanbon 1-dong and Sanbon 2-dong. At 20.70 ㎢, Gunpo maintained the smallest area of any city in South Korea.
  A large-scale housing complex zone was established in February 1989 when Gunpo City designated the entirety of Sanbon-dong, Geumjeong-dong, and Dang-dong as an anticipated residential land district. In December 1992, Gunpo City Hall relocated from Dang-dong to Geumjong-dong, and Sanbon Station, on Seoul Subway Line 4, was also opened in 1992.
  By 1994, there were ten administrative dongs in Gunpo but only five legal dongs. However, on 24 December of that year, four ris (villages) from neighbouring Banwol-myeon and Hwaseong-gun were incorporated into Gunpo due to the partial adjustment of administrative districts, and Gunpo's area grew to 36.38 ㎢. The city currently has nine legal dongs, or eleven administrative ones. The acquisition of Daeyami-ri from Banwol-myeon brought Daeyami Station, on Seoul Subway Line 4, into Gunpo's city limits.
  The development of Sanbon New Town was completed in 1995, and the area grew to become Gunpo's central hub. Sanbon's layout was devised by Kim Jinae, a famed Korean architect who also designed Seoul's Insa-dong and who was named one of Time's 100 leaders of the 21st century. In the year 2000, the new Revised Romanization of Korean formally changed the city's romanized name from Kunp'o to Gunpo. 2003 brought the opening of Surisan Station between Daeyami and Sanbon, and in 2010, Dangjeong Station was opened on both Line 1 and the Gyeongbu Line, bringing the total number of metro stations in the city to six.
caption: Sanbon New Town's fountain on a summer night
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