Pohang City Gains Momentum in Building the Hwandonghae National Defense History and Culture Center

Distinctive Patriotic Memorial Facility to Be Built as a Future-Oriented Space for Intergenerational Communication

200 Billion KRW Invested in Ilwol-dong, Nam-gu ... Completion Targeted for End of 2026

The construction project for the ‘Hwandonghae National Defense History and Culture Center,’ which Pohang City has been promoting since 2022, is expected to gain momentum following the president’s pledge of support.

The Memorial Day ceremony held on June 6 at Deoksudong Chung Hontap Plaza.

On the 20th, President Yoon Suk Yeol emphasized and pledged support for the ‘Hwandonghae National Defense History and Culture Center’ being promoted by Pohang City during the 26th Public Livelihood Forum held at Yeungnam University, expressing his intention to foster North Gyeongsang Province as a sacred site for national defense and veterans’ affairs.

Pohang City is working on establishing the National Defense History and Culture Center centered in Pohang to inherit and develop the spirit of national defense in the Hyeongsan River and East Coast regions, and to discover and utilize national defense culture as a new thematic tourism resource for the area. The center will serve as a space for exhibiting, experiencing, educating, and touring the national defense history of the Hwandonghae region.

To this end, the city began a basic planning research service in August 2022 and held a National Assembly forum in September of the same year to widely publicize the necessity of constructing the center. At the same time, support was rallied from veterans’ organizations and citizens. Last year, a feasibility study was conducted, steadily preparing the necessary procedures.

The Hwandonghae National Defense History and Culture Center is scheduled to be built in Ilwol-dong, Nam-gu, by the end of 2026, with an investment of 20 billion KRW. The center will occupy a site of 8,000 square meters and have a total floor area of 2,000 square meters.

Unlike existing memorial facilities, it will be created as a complex cultural center within daily life, equipped with a commemorative hall, museum, education center, and experience center. The aim is to make the theme of national defense and veterans’ affairs easy and comfortable for citizens and tourists to access in a relaxed and natural way.

Mayor Lee Kangdeok stated, “Our region is a place of national defense with a history of coming together to repel foreign forces whenever the nation was in crisis, such as during the Japanese invasion and the Korean War. We will construct the National Defense History and Culture Center as a groundbreaking space that instills pride in national heroes and their families and inspires patriotism among citizens, making it a landmark that attracts people to the region.”

Currently, the Hwandonghae National Defense History and Culture Center construction project is undergoing preliminary administrative procedures, and a basic concept service is underway to devise unique exhibition, operation, and utilization plans for the veterans’ cultural center.