Bucheon named Asia’s first Unesco City of Literature

The city of Bucheon, Gyeonggi said Wednesday that it has become a Unesco City of Literature, Asia’s first and the 21st in the world.

The City of Literature program is part of the global culture body’s Creative Cities Network aimed at fostering cultural diversity.

Launched in 2004, the network currently holds 180 members from 72 countries covering seven creative fields: crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, music and media arts.

“The Paris-based Unesco announced Bucheon’s Literature City entry via its homepage on Tuesday,” a city official said, adding that other such cities include Edinburgh of Britain, Dublin of Ireland and Prague of the Czech Republic.

Located just west of Seoul, Bucheon filed an application containing the city’s various projects to honor late writers who had been active in the city and activities of literature organizations with Unesco in June.

The application also highlighted the city’s vibrant cultural content industry, including cartoons and webtoons, the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival and the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra, the official said.

The Bucheon entry brought the total number of the country’s Creative Cities to eight.

The seven other cities are Icheon (crafts), Seoul (design), Jeonju (gastronomy), Busan (film), Gwangju (media arts), Tongyeong (music) and Daegu (music).

Yonhap