Busan, South Korea

Biophilic Cities Member since 2024

Busan (부산) is a vibrant city located at the southeastern end of the Korean peninsula. As the second largest city in South Korea, it features an array of natural landscapes including rivers, coastlines, and forested areas. In May 2024, Busan became the first city in Korea to join the Biophilic Cities Network, marking a significant achievement for both the city and the network. During the event, the mayor of Busan “emphasized the necessity of creating a sustainable city where nature and humans coexist.” In the past ten years, Busan has collaborated with public sector offices and private investors on various nature-focused initiatives to connect communities with their environment. The city and its partners are actively researching and applying low-tech and high-tech solutions to address urban challenges like heat, sedentary behavior, urban sprawl, and noise pollution.

While Busan is the first city in South Korea to join the Biophilic Cities Network, it certainly will not be the last. The network is enthusiastic about the possibility of more cities joining BCN. After his recent trip to Korea, Tim Beatley shared his thoughts with the University of Virginia School of Architecture: “About 70 percent of [Korea] is in protected forested mountain preserves, and it is a ubiquitous natural backdrop to even large dense cities like Busan. The patterns of urbanization are quite different from most American cities… There are few single-family homes, very few low-density residential neighborhoods, and most people, across the income spectrum, live in high-rise apartments.” These promising trends make Busan a pioneer for a possible nationwide phenomenon.

PROJECT SPOTLIGHTS

• “Wind Path Forests:” A novel way of using branching forests to moderate air pollutants and mitigate excessive heat. In 2020, Busan invested 83.3 billion won (Approximately $57 million USD) into forests, a quarter of which will go to small parks and forests within the urban core.

• Busan Citizens Park: The Citizens Park is a 133-acre ecological park originally occupied by an Imperial Japanese Army base (pre-WWII) and a United States Army camp (During WWII and the Korean War). The park was opened in 2014 and hosts over 97 different species of trees and bushes. It aims to be a barrier-free, accessible, safe, and smoke-free environment.

• The Nakdonggang River Estuary National Park: This park along the Nakdonggang River serves as a crucial wildlife sanctuary, designated as a "Haven for Migratory Birds." Encompassing the delta of the river and various wetlands, it spans an impressive 87 million square acres of land surrounding the city.

• Oceanix Busan: In 2022, Busan unveiled a project to build the world’s first floating city in cooperation with UN-Habitat and Oceanix. The city could become a prototype for sinking cities or coastal cities facing loss of land from sea level rise.

• Eco-Delta Smart City: A waterfront area chosen as the first region for Busan’s pilot smart city program. It aims to house 76,000 people within a 12-square-kilometer area by 2028. The Atlas of Urban Tech reports that Eco-Delta “focuses on ten innovative ways to add value to urban living, using a people-led, bottom-up approach for field-specific innovations and a top-down approach for strategic objectives.”

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