World Cup Park
The World Cup Park (월드컵공원; map) on Nanji Island (난지도; map) along the Han River in Seoul. It contains a network of parks, punctuated by the 2002 FIFA World Cup’s flagship stadium.
Let’s get a brief history lesson, then explore the park.
Nanji Island
Nanji Island lies in the Mapo District. During the Joseon Dynasty, the area sat west of Hanseong (한성), Korea’s ancient capital. It remained remote for hundreds of years, acting as a honeymoon spot filled with blooming orchids.
While it became a part of Seoul in 1949, it remained remote until later in the century.
Boys Town
In the 1950s, destitute relatives gave Hwang Kwang-eun (황광은), a local pastor and Boy Scout leader, children orphaned by the Korean War (1950 ~ 53). Hwang established a community called Boys Town (보이스타운) on Nanji Island.
Seoul recognized the benefits of Nanji Island. It was remote, cut off from the mainland, like a prison. So it emptied its streets of delinquent youths and placed them on Nanji.
While Boys Town lasted just four years (1951 ~ 55), its young residents received schooling and a special “city-within-a-city” status by Seoul.
Its founder, Hwang Kwang-eun wrote a fictional short story about Nanji’s boys. Its main character, who grew up in Boys Town amid corrupt politicians, overcomes struggles to become mayor.
Landfill Mountain
After the Korean War, the nation transformed itself through a series of Five-Year Plans, which created increasingly complex industries.
- 1st Five-Year Plan (1962 ~ 66): build infrastructure and improve agriculture.
- 2nd Five-Year Plan (1967 ~ 71): pivot to steel and petrochemical manufacturing.
- 3rd Five-Year Plan (1972 ~ 76): grow electronics, machining, shipbuilding industries. Continue petrochemicals and advanced metals production.
- 5th Five-Year Plan (1982 ~ 86): expand into consumer electronics (TVs & camcorders), semiconductors, and precision machinery.
- 7th Five-Year Plan (1992 ~ 96): punch through into top-tech industries, including microelectronics, advanced chemicals, biotech, and aerospace.
All this progress created mountains of waste. Mountains.
Seoul and its satellite cities needed a place to put their trash. And in 1978, they chose Nanji Island.
At its peak, 3,000 garbage trucks emptied onto Nanji every day. This created two 90-meter-tall hills composed of 92 million tons of industrial, construction, and household waste.
Nanji became synonymous with filth. Korean mothers would say their children’s rooms “looked like Nanji.”
Nanji Dwellers
Nanji’s expansive landfills created a mini-society. Over 700 folks lived on Nanji Island, cohabitating with Seoul’s trash. They scavenged for materials, reselling what they could. And they used methane released from the decomposing heaps as cooking fuel.
Nanji residents operated a closed community. They built their own homes and kept outsiders off the island. Because they interacted little with city-dwellers, police didn’t intervene with the people on Nanji island. If death came, the garbage heaps would swallow the body.
Nanji Renewal
Two things happened in the 1990s.
- The Nanji Landfill closed when it hit capacity in 1993.
- And in 1996, FIFA selected Korea and Japan to host the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
FIFA intended the games as an olive branch. Japan had occupied Korea and exploited its citizens just several decades earlier (1910 ~ 1945). Now they would jointly host the world’s premier sports event.
But there was one side effect: competition. Korea knew that international TV cameras would give billions of at-home spectators a side-by-side comparison between itself and Japan.
So, like the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea needed to tidy up. But instead of hiding the twin mountains of rubbish on its borders, in 1997 Seoul’s higher-ups place Korea’s flagship Seoul World Cup Stadium (월드컵경기장; map) on Nanji Island.
To make the old landfill not only habitable but picturesque, workers wrapped the twin 90-meter garbage hills in thick lining to contain oozy, leaky sewage, and built a network of parks directly on top and around the side.
The Park
World Cup Park is Seoul’s largest park, covering 3.5 square kilometers. It features twin flat top, side-by-side pyramid plateaus (aerial view) known as:
They rise about a hundred meters just north of Gangbyeon Expressway (강변북로; map).
Why pyramids?
The city decided it wouldn’t just toss 92 million metric tons of garbage somewhere else. Instead, they buried the toxic rubbish deep, sealed it, and mounded tons of soil on top.
Today, walk the elevated grounds of Haneul & Noeul Parks and spy small pipes sticking out of the earth. These vents release underground methane buildup.
An incineration plant dropped between the plateaus uses the buried landfill’s excess gasses to burn Seoul’s current waste flow.
Four & More Parks
World Cup Park comprises four parks clustered near the Seoul World Cup Stadium. Here’s a quick glance at each.
- Pyeonghwa Park (평화의공원; map; Peace Park) is the World Cup Park’s premier park. It connects to the Seoul World Cup Stadium via a concrete bridge and holds Nanji Pond, a plaza, and a picnic area.
- Haneul Park (하늘공원; map; Sky Park) sits on one of two flat-top pyramids. The most popular park, it brings thousands to the park’s ripened grass fields in late summer. The 291 steps ascending the plateau is a popular photo-zone.
- Noeul Park (노을공원; map; Sunset Park) occupies the other of high-rise pyramid. A nine-hole golf course takes up much of the park’s area. But visitors can also enjoy a sculpture park, silkworm and firefly habitats, and bookshop.
- Nanji Stream Park (난지천공원; map; Nanji Stream Park) flows along the Nanji Stream at the base of Haneul and Noeul Park. It offers walking paths, playgrounds, and more.
A few more notable parks lie around World Cup Park.
- Nanji Hangang Park (난지한강공원; map) is a part of the Hangang Park system. Because it lies just over the Gangbyeon Expressway, people often group it with World Cup Park.
- Oil Tank Culture Park (문화비축기지; map) is an old oil tanker field converted into a sculpture park next to Seoul World Cup Stadium.
