Changwon’s Official English Website

Changwon official english-language city website, https://changwon.go.kr/language/main.do, can be overwhelming at first glance, but with a little digging, it’s possible to find some interesting, albeit flawed information.

The website is divided into six sections: About Changwon, Enviromental Capital, Business, Culture & Tourism, Living, and Community. The following is a breakdown of each section:

1. About Changwon
   • The first subsection is dedicated to the Mayor. It contains a letter of greeting from Changwon mayor Park Wan-su, as well his background information.
   • Under the subsection City Government, there is a flow chart of city government, city statistics, an explanation of the city’s qualities, and a list of world organizations that Changwon belongs to.
   • The Overview subsection provides powerpoint-esque graphics and information concerning Changwon’s development strategies, a brief history of the area, explanations of city symbols (our take on the mascots can be found here), and a map that shows Changwon’s location in Korea.
   • Following that is an incongruously placed list of local specialty dishes.
   • About Changwon’s final subsection is a link to a high production value English-language promotional video extolling Changwon’s virtues.  Script included.
2. Environmental Capital
   • Appropriately titled What is Environmental Capital? attempts to define that term.
   • Declarations of Changwon lists the city’s intentions as an environmental capital.
   • Plans delves into the specifics of Changwon’s environmental goals regarding clean air, drinking water, mass transit, et cetera.
   • Future Plans further pounds home the idea with a phased-base list of goals, as well as “action plans”.
   • The final item in this section is information about an upcoming Changwon-hosted East Asian Seas Congress 2012, which is no longer upcoming, as it occurred in July.
3. Business
   • The Investment Environment subsection is divided into more basic city statistics, and another map of Changwon’s location in Korea.  This time, the map is accompanied by transportation network information.
   • Investment Support System details available tax exemptions and government subsidies for investing businesses.
   • Overview of Industrial Complex has statistics and information for various city complexes, both at district level and neighborhood level.  Additionally, there is contact information for sales and rentals.
4. Culture & Tourism
   • The Featured Attractions subsection features information on Changwon’s most publicized tourist attractions.  Special attention should be payed to the left-side menu in this section, and the attractions are further subdivided between the Changwon/Masan/Jinhae areas, requiring the viewer to click the area’s name to see its list of attractions.  Furthermore, each area’s information appears to be from different sources, as the formatting for the attractions varies wildly by area.  Changwon’s attractions offer a larger image, smaller (non-expandable) images, address (in English), contact info, a brief description, and images for related (nearby facilities).  Masan’s attractions have a smaller image, very brief descriptions and pop-up links to “VR Views”, which at least on this Mac computer, do not work.  No information is provided for attraction location.  Jinhae’s attractions feature no pictures, but their descriptions are more substantive, and they also generally have directions, bus information and nearby accommodations. Viewers should take caution, as some of the bus information is out of date, and directions are often vague.
   • Misleadingly titled Tourist Attractions provides several options for tourism courses through the city.  They are divided into bicycle courses, naval tours, historical sites, one day tours, and two day tours.  Unfortunately, the courses provided simply list the order or places to visit, and do not offer maps or directions.
   • Festivals & Events provides a list of local festivals through out the year, along with  contact information.  Dates are provided when possible, but many of the festivals do not have the same dates every year.
   • The Cultural Relics subsection provides information on treasures/historical relics, local cultural properties, local monuments, and cultural property data.  Like the featured attractions, the content for each item varies, not always providing adresses, directions or photos.
   • Selecting Tour Map will provide a popup window with Changwon’s hand-drawn tourist map.  The map can be zoomed in or out, and a key is provided.  The bottom right corner provides links to downloadable compressed jpg images for the map in multiple languages.
   • City Tour provides information for Changwon official city bus tour, and details the different tours available.
   • The Climbing subsection provides hiking information, with information about individual mountains.  While all of the mountains are lumped together in to one list, information here also varies by city area.  Changwon’s mountains have labeled satellite maps, corresponding course information, descriptions of features, and smaller images of facilities.  Masan’s mountains have a small image, description, location information, as well as VR views.  They sometimes have course explanations as well, but no corresponding maps.  Jinhae’s information is similar to Masan’s, except without images or VR views.
   • Park Information is provided in a similar way to the hiking information.  There are less images, and depending on the area, information varies.
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The website is exhaustive in listing various parks, hikes, culture areas, etc., but depending on the district of origin, the information varies.  For example, in the hikes section