All Eyes on Busan

Korea’s second-largest city combines a favorable business environment with an enviable quality of life.

- By Michael Allen

Busan, which sits on the southeast coast of the Korean Peninsula facing Japan, was one of only two South Korean cities not captured by North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. Consequently, the city served as a haven for refugees and a gateway for the United Nations (UN) troops battling the North.

“The actual combat never quite made it to Busan,” says John Bocskay, director of international affairs at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan and author of CultureShock! Korea. “At one point, pretty much all of the peninsula except a 30-mile perimeter was captured. This was the last bastion from where the UN then launched their counterattack against the North. Busan didn’t see the destruction other parts of the country saw, but it saw a massive influx of refugees from the war and grew very rapidly in this pell-mell way to harbor these refugees.”

Bocskay, who grew up in the suburbs of New York City, is one of many expatriates who have chosen to call Busan home, drawn by the city’s more relaxed lifestyle compared to the frenetic capital Seoul.

More than 60 years after the Korean War, Busan has grown to become the second-largest city in South Korea, with a population of 3.7 million, according to the Busan Tourism Organization.