Busan Metropolitan City lies to the southeast of the Korean peninsula and is South Korea’s second most populous metropolitan city, with a population of approximately 3.6 million residents. It is South Korea’s largest port city and the 5th largest container port in the world. Busan’s key economic sectors include ship-building and marine industries, machinery, steel, and tourism. Creative culture, bio-health and knowledge infrastructure services are also important sectors of the city’s economy. Busan is renowned in South Korea as a tourist and cultural hotspot, particularly famous among Koreans for its many hot spring resorts and spas.
Major sustainable urban development initiatives in Busan include the U-City initiative, which aims to provide various ubiquitous city services and information to citizens anywhere and anytime through integrating urban infrastructure and ICT. Another key urban/economic development initiative is the North Port Redevelopment Project which strives to establish Busan and its ports as a global shipping gateway to the Eurasian continent. The West Busan Development Project is also a notable urban development plan focusing on the development of the western part of the city, which currently lags behind the development of eastern Busan. To this end, Busan established the West Busan Development Bureau within the city government and has formulated a West Busan global city plan.
In the World Cities Project Busan is collaborating with the European city of Barcelona (ES).