Incheon

Incheon is a port city on the Yellow Sea in northwestern South Korea, west of Seoul. Incheon International Airport stands off its coast on land reclaimed between two islands. Its Chinatown is where jajangmyeon, noodles in black bean sauce, was first served by Chinese cooks in the early 20th century.

The small port of Jemulpo opened to foreign trade in 1883, and quarters for Japanese, Chinese and Western merchants grew up on the hills beside it. The first railway in Korea linked the port with Seoul in 1899. Salt pans and rice fields along the coast were turned into new land for factories and housing during the 20th century, and Incheon became a metropolitan city in the 1980s. Ganghwa Island and other islands of the Yellow Sea joined the city in the 1990s. The Asian Games were held there in the 2010s.

Celltrion makes biosimilar medicines and Samsung Biologics produces biological drugs for other companies, both at plants in the Songdo district. GM Korea builds cars at its Bupyeong plant and has its headquarters in the city. The Port of Incheon ships cars, steel and containers to China across the Yellow Sea.

Songdo International Business District, built on reclaimed land from the 2000s, has a central park with a seawater canal and the tall Northeast Asia Trade Tower. Chinatown keeps red gates, Chinese restaurants and a museum of jajangmyeon in the former Gonghwachun restaurant. The dolmens of Ganghwa Island, stone tombs of the Bronze Age, are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.