Ulsan City Creates 'U-Jaem City' with Diverse Culture!

Announcement of Ulsan City's '2025 Cultural City Development Plan'
Collaboration Between Cultural City Development Projects and Cultural and Artistic Initiatives

Ulsan City is preparing and promoting the ‘2025 Cultural City Development Plan’ to create a U-Jam city filled with diverse cultures.

Marking the third year as a designated cultural city, the plan aims to secure the competitiveness of Ulsan’s unique culture and lay the foundation for its leap forward as a cultural city.

Until now, cultural city development projects and Ulsan’s cultural and artistic projects have been managed separately, but starting this year, a collaborative system will be established among these projects, linking 34 projects across three fields with a total support budget of 15.8 billion KRW.

◆ Major Project Details

In the locality field that expresses the value of regional culture, 1.12 billion KRW will be supported for ▲ district-specific projects to discover content reflecting the unique characteristics of each district ▲ a cultural city creative content activation plan (project) to discover and produce specialized content themed on Cultural City Ulsan ▲ planning programs that elicit empathy and encourage participation from Ulsan youth (Ulsan Youth Playlist), among others.

In the platform field, which is the cultural autonomy base starting from key points, 1.28 billion KRW will be supported for ▲ the Ulsan Cultural Expo, a metropolitan specialized project ▲ ‘Culture Factory’ as a cultural city hub space, ‘Art Factory’ as a linked creative space in idle spaces ▲ operation of a platform for cultural and artistic donations, among others.

In the governance field, which is the power of culture cooperating together, 600 million KRW will be supported for ▲ discovering professionals who will mediate cultural city activity planning and administration, private sector, and corporate cooperation (Cultural Transformation PD) ▲ operating a citizen publicity group and supporting club activities to build a voluntary participation and citizen-led cooperative system in the regional cultural and artistic ecosystem, among others.

Additionally, leveraging the advantage of being the only metropolitan cultural city nationwide, Ulsan plans to establish a super-metropolitan public-private cooperation (governance) system in the cultural field with districts, nationwide cultural cities and cultural tourism foundations, and the Haeoreum Alliance to discover and promote various linked projects.

Along with the cultural city development projects, Ulsan plans to inject new vitality into the local cultural ecosystem by linking 23 cultural and artistic projects (12.8 billion KRW) including support for performance venue rental fees, support for artists’ creative preparation funds, and the Ulsan Child Culture Pass.

A city official said, “By linking the ‘Cultural City Development Project’ in its third year with ‘our city’s cultural and artistic projects,’ we will strive to provide Ulsan residents with diverse opportunities to enjoy culture and arts and to expand a sustainable cultural foundation.”

Designated cultural cities are projects conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to promote cultural participation and enjoyment among local residents, thereby fostering regional development and strengthening cultural creativity.

Ulsan City was selected in 2023 as the first metropolitan local government in the 4th designated cultural city public contest, securing an annual budget of 3 billion KRW and a total of 15 billion KRW over five years to carry out the project.