An Overview of the Saemangeum Project

'Saemangeum' means that a new land is created by combining Mangyeong Plain and Gimje Plain, the largest granary in the country. The character 'Man' (萬) in Mangyeong Plain and 'Geum' (金) in Gimje Plain ) and was called Saemangeum. The Gimje/Mangyeong plains in Gimje-si, Jeollabuk-do have been called 'Geumman plains' since ancient times, and Saemangeum is a word created by changing the word 'Geumman' to 'Mangeum' and adding 'sae', meaning new. It contains the meaning of cultivating new fertile soil such as the Mangyeong and Gimje Plains, which have long been famous for their fertile soil.

The name of Saemangeum became widely known in July 1987 when the government announced the "Comprehensive Development Company for Reclamation of Saemangeum." The government pledged the largest reclamation project since Dangun was running for president. Since then, Saemangeum has been the mainstay of many twists and turns. The Saemangeum project, which had been going smoothly for several years since the start of the seawall in 1991, has come to the center of controversy as environmental discourse began in 1995. Over the next decade, the company has been embroiled in protests and lawsuits against environmental groups, religious circles and local residents, reducing itself from the "world's largest reclamation project" to the epitome of social conflict in Korea. However, it ended a decade-long legal battle after winning the Supreme Court's ruling in 2006, and completed the world's longest seawall with a whopping 33.9 kilometers, which is longer than the 32.5-kilometer Zuiderzee seawall in the Netherlands, in April 2010 and was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records on August 2, 2010. Now, it is overcoming all the conflicts and confrontations and is promoting the most eco-friendly project as a green growth pilot area.