The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 7th that it has created gardens in 2,180 locations along the roads over approximately a year and a half from last January to June this year. The total area developed is 153,298 square meters.
The gardens created by the Seoul Metropolitan Government include street gardens along sidewalks, one-pinch gardens beneath street trees, and traffic island gardens in the middle of roads.
These gardens are characterized by their installation along roads where citizens, such as drivers and pedestrians, can encounter them in their daily lives. They aim to achieve the 'garden consolidation' that organically connects Seoul as one garden beyond individual green spaces.
Garden consolidation is a concept that connects vacant spaces of point, line, and area in urban parks, green areas, and street trees with greenery. It is a development strategy aimed at the goal of encountering gardens every time one walks in Seoul.
To this end, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has developed street gardens in 143 locations (128,780 square meters) including Saemunan-ro in Jongno-gu. While street gardens between sidewalks and roads have previously been uniformly planted with trees under the name 'band green space', flowers and plants have been planted since the declaration of Seoul as a garden city in 2023.
Currently, one-pinch gardens have been created in 1,960 locations including Sejong-daero in Jung-gu and Seoul Plaza. These are small spaces where flowers and plants have been planted instead of tree protection plates.
In addition, traffic island gardens have been created in 77 locations including the central dividers and roundabouts between Hyehwa-ro in Jongno-gu and Hancheon-ro in Seongbuk-gu.
Lee Soo-yeon, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Garden City Bureau, said, 'We will expand gardens that can be encountered within a 5-minute distance from roads anywhere in Seoul to about 300,000 square meters by next year, completing Seoul as a garden city.'