Mayor of Seoul
Hangul was made the official script of the Korean language since 1948, replacing Hanja, and Hanja is not required to be learned until high school as an elective course in South Korea. Former Mayor of Seoul Lee Myung-bak's move to change Seoul's official Chinese name from "Hancheng" (한성,漢城) to Seoul (서울) in 2005 as a model of de-Sinicization. The previous name, pronounced Hànchéng in Chinese and Hanseong in Korean, is an old name for Seoul. Hanseong was derived from the "Han River", and literally means "Walled City on the Han (Wide) River" but the name can be misinterpreted as "Han Chinese City". The new name Shou'er (首爾) carried no such connotation, and was close in both sound and meaning to "Seoul", which, uniquely among Korean place names, does not have a Sino-Korean name. See also Names of Seoul.