Asan City Visits Hamamatsu City, Japan, Asia's First "Intercultural City"

Foreign Policy Advisory and Advice on Joining the 'Sangho Munhwa City'

Asan City, which declared its membership in the "Intercultural City" program, visited Hamamatsu City in Japan, the first city in Asia to be designated as an Intercultural City.

Asan City in Chungnam visited Hamamatsu City in Japan, the first intercultural city in Asia, to seek advice on foreigner policies.

An intercultural city is a city where diverse cultural, national, ethnic, and religious groups live together, recognizing and exchanging their unique values and lifestyles. Since 2008, it has been jointly designated by the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Union (EU).

As of November 2022, 10% of Asan's total population are foreigners, and the city is promoting membership in the intercultural city network within 2024 to foster coexistence with foreign residents.

Hamamatsu City, which joined as the first intercultural city in Asia in 2017, has about 29,000 foreign residents and recognizes foreign citizens as important partners in city development, aiming to be a multicultural coexistence city. In particular, it implements various multicultural coexistence policies in three stages every five years.

The Asan delegation discussed with Hamamatsu officials the city's cultural creation and regional revitalization based on diversity, projects to encourage settlement of outstanding talents such as foreign exchange students in the local community, and cooperation among intercultural cities.

Mayor Park Kyung-gwi said, “The core strategies of Hamamatsu for achieving the intercultural city vision, such as promoting foreign talent activities, supporting Japanese language learning, assisting foreign residents' daily lives, and multicultural crisis management, were impressive. We intend to learn from the wisdom and experience accumulated by Hamamatsu and boldly introduce policies suitable for Asan’s circumstances.”