By Oh Young-jin
Staff Reporter
Another big city with a population over 1 million is expected to come into being in July through the merger of three satellite cities located close to Seoul ― Seongnam, Gwangju and Hanam.
The combined city would be larger in area than Seoul, and beat Ulsan, a southeastern industrial city, to become the seventh biggest in the country.
It will be home to high tech industries and provide housing for the ever-sprawling Seoul metropolis, and will be named "Seonggwangha," combining the first Korean letter of each component city in order of size.
The latest move follows the combining of Changwon, Masan and Jinhae, which agreed last September to a three-way merger.
However, the Seongnam-Gwangju-Hanam combination is expected to face legal challenges due to the questionable passage of the proposed bill by Seongnam's city council.
The bill was pushed through only by council members affiliated with the ruling Grand National Party (GNP).
A recess was called for a plenary session just before midnight Thursday after there appeared to be no agreement in sight due to the strong opposition of council members affiliated to smaller parties.
GNP council members came back shortly afterwards together with security personnel and removed those occupying the podium before passing the merger proposal in a matter of minutes. The other parties vowed to take legal action.
The new city will be 665 square kilometers, 60 square kilometers bigger than Seoul. Its population would be 1.33 million, 200,000 more than that of Ulsan.
Its gross regional domestic product or GRDP is estimated to reach 15 trillion won, about 10 percent of Gyeonggi Province, in which the merged city is located.
There are two other city-to-city mergers under way. One covers the city of Chungju and Cheongwon County in Chungcheong. The former is positive about the move, but the latter is resisting the merger. The Cheongwon council is scheduled to conduct a vote next month.
The other is to bring together Suwon, Osan and Hwaseong, also located near Seoul. Only Suwon among the three is positive about it.
Meanwhile, Changwon, Masan and Jinhae are seeing smooth sailing in their merger effort, despite some pockets of resistance. All planned merged cities will be launched in July after the June 2 local elections.