For millions of travellers, Incheon is the first thing they see of Korea: its airport, repeatedly ranked among the best in the world, is the country's front door. But stopping at the airport means missing a city with plenty of history and character. Incheon was one of the first ports that the 'Hermit Kingdom' of Korea opened to the outside world in the late 19th century, and that role as a window to the world still shows in its Chinatown —the oldest in the country—, in the old Japanese- and Western-style buildings of the Open Port area, and in its cosmopolitan, port-city feel.
The city offers a fascinating contrast: on one side, historic Incheon, with its alleys, markets and the seafront promenade of Wolmido Island; on the other, the Incheon of the future, embodied by Songdo, an entire district built on land reclaimed from the sea, with skyscrapers, a central park inspired by New York's and 'smart city' ambitions. And all around it, dozens of Yellow Sea islands where Seoulites escape at weekends in search of beaches, seafood and sea air.
This guide covers Incheon with a practical eye: what to see in Chinatown and the picturesque Fairy Tale Village, how to make sense of the Open Port area and its place in history (including the famous 1950 landing), how to enjoy Wolmido and Songdo, and how to slip away by ferry to a nearby island. It's a perfect destination for a day trip from Seoul or for the first and last hours of your trip, close to the airport.
Incheon has been tied to the sea for centuries, but its big leap came in 1883, when the port of Jemulpo (old Incheon) became one of the first that Korea opened to international trade under pressure from foreign powers. Chinese, Japanese and Western merchants soon arrived, leaving their mark on Chinatown, the consulates and the foreign-style buildings that still stand today. In September 1950, during the Korean War, Incheon was the stage for one of the most decisive military episodes of the 20th century: the Incheon Landing, the daring amphibious operation led by General Douglas MacArthur that turned the tide of the conflict and made it possible to retake Seoul. In recent decades, the city has reinvented itself with the construction of its international airport (2001) and the Songdo district, a symbol of modern Korea. The full story, from open port to city of the future, is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The country's political heart for more than six centuries: capital of the Joseon dynasty and of modern Korea, with its gateway at Incheon and the border with the North.
Read the history of Seoul and the northwest (capital region) →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have over 10 activities in Seul. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Three are below so you get the idea: tap any of them and they all open.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before it became Korea's third-largest city and the country's gateway, Incheon was a modest cluster of fishing villages and salt pans looking out over the Yellow Sea, on a coastline of huge tides and mudflats. The main settlement was called Jemulpo. For centuries the area had some military importance because of its defensive position at the sea entrance to Seoul (the capital lay just a few dozen kilometres upriver), and fortresses were built on its islands to guard the sea approach to the court.
That closeness to Seoul would shape Incheon's whole destiny. Whoever controlled this stretch of coast controlled the kingdom's sea gate, which is why the place saw tension every time a foreign power tried to force open the isolated Korea of the 19th century. In the 1860s and 1870s, French and American military expeditions fought on nearby islands (such as Ganghwa) in an attempt to open the country to trade, and for a while Korea managed to push them back.
But the pressure was unstoppable. Joseon-dynasty Korea, which had kept a policy of isolation for centuries and earned the nickname 'hermit kingdom', found itself more and more cornered between the interests of Japan, China, Russia and the Western powers. And the key to entering the country lay in this quiet port on the Yellow Sea.
The moment that changed Incheon forever came in 1883, when the port of Jemulpo was officially opened to international trade. After the treaty Japan imposed on Korea in 1876 and later agreements with other powers, Korea agreed to open several ports to foreigners. Because it was so close to the capital, Jemulpo became the most important of them all: the window through which the world entered the 'hermit kingdom'.
Within a few years, the fishing village turned into a busy, cosmopolitan city. Merchants, diplomats and missionaries arrived from China, Japan, the United States, Britain, Russia and other countries, and they set up their own districts, or 'concessions', with consulates, banks, churches, hotels and trading houses. Chinese merchants, mostly from Shandong province, founded the Chinatown that still exists in 1884. It is the oldest in Korea, and over time it gave birth to jajangmyeon, the black-bean-sauce noodles that would become popular all over the country. The Japanese built their own district of grid-pattern streets and Western-style buildings, and many of them survive today in the open port area.
Incheon was also behind many of modern Korea's 'firsts'. The country's first railway (the Gyeongin line, which linked it to Seoul in 1899), the telegraph, modern lighthouses and the first Western-style park (today's Freedom Park, from 1888) all arrived here. The city became a laboratory of modernisation and, at the same time, a symbol of the foreign pressure that would end Korean independence.
Opening the port did not bring the self-governed modernisation Korea was hoping for. Instead, it sped up the country's fall into Japan's orbit. The Russo-Japanese War began in Incheon's waters in 1904, with a naval clash off the port. A year later Japan made Korea a protectorate, and in 1910 it annexed the country outright. During the 35 years of colonial rule (1910-1945), Incheon, renamed in the Japanese style, grew into an industrial and commercial port serving the empire, with factories, shipyards and warehouses. Meanwhile, Koreans saw their culture suppressed and their labour exploited.
Liberation in 1945 soon gave way to the tragedy of division. With the peninsula split along the 38th parallel and the Korean War breaking out in June 1950, Incheon, like Seoul, found itself at the centre of the conflict. In the first weeks, North Korean troops pushed almost to the southern tip of the peninsula, cornering South Korean and UN forces in the Busan pocket. The situation looked hopeless.
That was when Incheon made its grand entrance into 20th-century military history, with one of the boldest and riskiest operations of the whole war.
On 15 September 1950, in the middle of the Korean War, US-led United Nations forces launched a massive amphibious operation at Incheon. It was called Operation Chromite, and General Douglas MacArthur planned it. The gamble was huge: Incheon has some of the most extreme tides in the world. The water level shifts by several metres, exposing vast mudflats and leaving only short windows of time for a landing. Many officers thought it was madness to try to land there. That is exactly why it was the last place the North Koreans expected it.
The operation was a resounding success. Thousands of soldiers landed by surprise far behind enemy lines and pushed inland within days. The Incheon landing cut the supply lines of the North Korean army, which until then had been driving UN forces back towards Busan, and it allowed Seoul to be retaken just two weeks later. In a matter of days the course of the war was completely reversed: from the brink of defeat, the southern forces went on the offensive and pushed the North back almost to the Chinese border.
The Incheon landing is still studied at military academies today as an example of strategic daring, and its memory is very present in the city. A statue of General MacArthur stands in Freedom Park, and several memorials commemorate the operation. It was the episode that put Incheon in the world's history books, though, like the whole Korean War, it came at an enormous human cost and left the peninsula with a division that endures to this day.
Like the rest of the country, Incheon made an astonishing recovery after the war. Riding the 'Miracle on the Han River', the city grew into a major industrial and port hub for the Seoul metropolitan area, with steelworks, factories and one of the busiest ports in the country. Its population multiplied, and in 1981 it became a metropolitan city in its own right, administratively separate from the province around it.
The big leap onto the international stage came in 2001, when Incheon International Airport opened. It was built on land reclaimed from the sea between the islands of Yeongjong and Yongyu. Designed on a grand scale and run with legendary efficiency, it soon became one of the highest-rated airports in the world and Korea's main air gateway, taking over international flights from the old Gimpo airport. Millions of travellers from all over the planet set foot in Korea for the first time at Incheon.
At the same time, the city bet on the future with Songdo, an international business district built from scratch on new land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea. It was conceived as a 'smart city' with skyscrapers, a large central park, international universities and the headquarters of global organisations. Songdo became a showcase of Korean ambition, although it has developed more slowly and unevenly than the original plans promised.
Today's Incheon is a city of contrasts that sums up much of Korea's modern history in just a few kilometres. In the old town around the open port you can still see Japanese and Western-style buildings from the late 19th century, the oldest Chinatown in the country and the hills of Freedom Park with their memories of the war. A few minutes away, the Wolmido seafront keeps the lively, down-to-earth feel of a seaside city, with seafood restaurants and an old-fashioned amusement park.
At the same time, Incheon looks to the future like few other cities in the country: the airport that connects it to the world, the Songdo district with its skyscrapers and saltwater canal park, and the great bridges that cross the sea to the islands. It is a city that keeps growing on land reclaimed from the water, true to its old role as the frontier between Korea and the outside world.
In 2014 Incheon hosted the Asian Games, another sign of its role as the country's international showcase. For travellers, the city offers something unusual: in a single day you can explore the Incheon of 19th-century Chinese merchants and consuls, the Incheon of the daring military operation that changed a war, and the Incheon of the 21st-century smart city. As Korea's gateway in and out, Incheon is much more than the first and last image of your trip.
