Bucheon

Sister cities

• Bakersfield
• Harbin
• Khabarovsk
• Okayama
• Kawasaki

History

In 1914, the outer areas of Incheon (including Gwangyo-dong, old Incheon's city center) and Bupyeong County were joined under the name Bucheon. In 1931, Gyenam township (myeon, 계남면) was renamed Sosa township (myeon, 소사면). In 1936, the westernmost part of Bucheon, then part of old Incheon, was incorporated in Incheon and in 1940 some other part of old Incheon belonging to Bucheon Country was incorporated in Incheon again while part of old Bupyeong was annexed to Incheon at the same time. In 1941, Sosa township promoted to eup (town) status. On January 1, 1963, when the great expansion of Seoul was implemented, several districts were combined to Yeongdeungpo District of Seoul as below. {| class="wikitable" ! colspan=2, style="width:50%"| Old districts !! colspan=2, style="width:50%"|New districts |- | Ojeong-myeon || Ogok-ri and Osoe-ri || rowspan=2| Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul || rowspan=2| Ogok-ri, Osoe-ri, Hang-ri, Onsu-ri, Gung-ri, Cheonwang-ri, Oryu-ri, Gaebong-ri and Gocheok-ri |- | Sosa-eup || Hang-ri, Onsu-ri, Gung-ri, Cheonwang-ri, Oryu-ri, Gaebong-ri and Gocheok-ri |} In 1988, two districts were established. Bucheon was divided into Nam-gu ("south", ) and Jung-gu ("central", ) along the Seoul-Incheon trainline. Present day Sosa-gu was formerly called Nam-gu. In 1993, Bucheon's Jung-gu was separated into two further districts, forming Wonmi () and Ojeong () Districts. The three districts were abolished in July 2016 as Bucheon decided to become a unified city without any administrative districts. However, on January 1, 2024, the Bucheon municipal government decided to return the three districts, along with the creation of 37 new administrative districts (or dongs).