, or Gyeongseong (), was an administrative district of

Korea under Japanese rule From 1910 to 1945, Korea was ruled by the Empire of Japan under the name Chōsen (), the Japanese reading of "Joseon". Japan first took Korea into its sphere of influence during the late 1800s. Both Korea (Joseon) and Japan had been under polic ...

that corresponds to the present

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

, the capital of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

History

When the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

annexed the Korean Empire, it made Seoul the colonial capital. While under

colonial rule Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an imperialist project, colonialism can also take ...

(1910–1945), the city was called Keijō (; , literally meaning "capital city" in

Hanja Hanja (; ), alternatively spelled Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period. () ...

.). Keijō was an urban city () that had 2 wards: Keijō itself and Ryusan-ku (龍山區, , ). Gyeongseong was part of Gyeonggi Province, instead of being an independent city or prefecture as in Joseon and present days. In 1914, several outer districts of the prefecture were annexed to neighboring Goyang County (now Goyang City, reducing the administrative size of the prefecture. In 1936, Gyeongseong expanded itself as it annexed Yeongdeungpo from Siehung County (Now Siehung City) and recombined some parts of former Gyeongseong districts (Sungin, Yeonghee, etc.) from Goyang County. The Government-General Building served as the seat of the colonial government of Colonial Korea but was torn down in 1995.

History

Honmachi

Demographics

See also

References