Administrative unit of districts throughout Korea
A
dong
(
Korean
:
桐
) or
neighborhood
is a submunicipal level administrative unit of a
city
[1]
and of those
cities
which are not divided into wards throughout
Korea
. The unit is often translated as neighborhood and has been used in both administrative divisions of
North Korea
[2]
and
South Korea
.
[3]
[4]
In South Korea
[
edit
]
A
dong
is, usually, the smallest level of urban-area division to have its own office and staff in South Korea. There are two types of
dong
:
legal-status neighborhood
(
法定洞
) and
administrative neighborhood
(
行政洞
).
[5]
[6]
[7]
For land property and (old) address,
legal-status neighborhood
is mainly used. Unlike what the name indicates, they are not defined by any
written law
. Instead, most of names are came from
customary law
, which indicates historical names.
Administrative neighborhood
, however, is defined by local governments to make an office (community center). Community centers provide some administrative services such as residential/birth registration or death notification, to relief service pressure of local government. Also, electoral districts are based on administrative neighborhood.
In usual cases, an administrative neighborhood is set by population of the area to match demands for the civil services. Because legal-status neighborhood uses historical name, recently developed (populated) area can be grouped as a single legal-status neighborhood. In such places, it can be divided into several administrative neighborhoods.
Sillim-dong
is a typical example for this case. For the same reason, there are some inverse cases, i.e. a single administrative neighborhood holding multiple legal-status neighborhoods. Such cases contain undeveloped suburban area, or recently declining area.
The primary division of a
dong
is the
tong
(
通/統
), but divisions at this level and below are used rarely in daily life. Cases using
tong
contain school districts or military services. Some
dong
are subdivided into
ga
(
가/街
), which are not a separate level of government but only exist for use in addresses. Many major thoroughfares in
Seoul
,
Suwon
, and other cities are also subdivided into
ga
.
The widest
legal-status dong
is
Unseo-dong
in Jung District, Incheon Metropolitan City, with an area of 51.56km2 (19.91 sq mi), and Incheon International Airport occupies most of the area, and this is larger than Anyang City (58.46 km2 (22.57 sq mi)) and Gyeryong City (60.7 km2 (23.4 sq mi)).
[8]
The narrowest
legal-status dong
is Sangdeok-dong in
Jung District
, Daegu Metropolitan City, with an area of 2,971m2 (0.003km2).
[9]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Korea annual, Volume 1991
(37 ed.).
Yonhap News Agency
. 2000. p. 126.
ISBN
978-89-7433-051-4
.
- ^
Hunter, (1999) p.154
- ^
Nelson, (2000), p.30
- ^
No, (1993), p.208
- ^
桐 洞
[Dong] (in Korean).
Nate
/
Encyclopedia of Korean Culture
. Archived from
the original
on 2011-06-10
. Retrieved
2009-09-06
.
- ^
桐 洞
[Dong] (in Korean).
Nate
/
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Archived from
the original
on 2011-06-10
. Retrieved
2009-09-06
.
- ^
行政洞 行政洞
[
Haengjeong-dong
(trans. Administrative dong)] (in Korean).
Doosan Encyclopedia
. Archived from
the original
on 2009-09-02
. Retrieved
2009-09-06
.
- ^
"中區 운서동 住民센터 門열어"
[Jung-gu Unseo-dong administrative welfare center opened] (in Korean). Kyeongin Ilbo
. Retrieved
15 July
2023
.
- ^
"[포토 스토리] 100걸음 걸으면 洞네 끝…國內 最小 法定洞 '大邱 中區 상덕동'
"
[[Photo Story] If you walk 100 steps, the neighborhood ends... 'Sangdeok-dong, Jung-gu, Daegu', the smallest legal-status dong in South Korea] (in Korean). The Yeongnam Ilbo. 14 October 2021
. Retrieved
15 July
2023
.
References
[
edit
]
- Hunter, Helen-Louise. (1999),
Kim Il-s?ng's North Korea
, Greenwood Publishing Group,
ISBN
0275962962
- Nelson, Laura C. (2000)
Measured excess: status, gender, and consumer nationalism in South Korea
, Columbia University Press,
ISBN
0-231-11616-0
- Yusuf, Shahid; Evenett, Simon J., Wu, Weiping. (2001)
Facets of globalization: international and local dimensions of development
World Bank Publications, pp. 226?227
ISBN
0-8213-4742-X
- No, Ch?ng-hy?n (1993)
Public administration and the Korean transformation: concepts, policies, and value conflicts
, Kumarian Press,
ISBN
1-56549-022-3