Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) region has become a multilayered space of boundaries and zones following the division of the Korean Peninsula and the 1953 Armistice Agreement. This study represents the first scholarly attempt to quantitatively assess the spatiotemporal changes in ecosystem services and ecological values associated with land use in the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ, also referred to as the ‘Minbuk’ area). The methodology applied Landsat satellite imagery-based land cover data from the late 1980s to the late 2000s, together with global value coefficients, to derive time-series land use, ecosystem service types and functions, and sensitivity coefficients. The analysis revealed dynamic changes in ecosystem services driven by agricultural expansion and the decline of forests and grasslands. The ecological value of ecosystem services in the CCZ decreased by 3.2%, from $118.39×10⁶ (KRW 165.7×10⁹) per year in the late 1980s to $114.56×10⁶ (KRW 160.3×10⁹) per year in the late 2000s. A disaggregated assessment by ecosystem service type and function showed that provisioning, cultural, and supporting services increased by 0.6%, 3.3%, and 3.6%, respectively. In contrast, regulating services, including water regulation, erosion control, and climate regulation, decreased by 6.5%. These contrasting results reflect disturbance of ecosystem functions in the region, likely due to spatial and structural factors associated with land-use changes, disruptions to regulating services, and climate vulnerability. The estimated value of ecosystem services of the CCZ, derived from benefit transfer and spatial allocation based on the global valuation results of Costanza and colleagues, was assessed to range between KRW 26.1 trillion and 34.8 trillion as of 2023. The midpoint value of KRW 30.4 trillion exceeds the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province in the same year and corresponds to approximately 53% of South Korea’s national defense budget of KRW 57 trillion. These findings carry significant implications for land-use transitions in forests and grasslands of the CCZ, the trade-offs between provisioning and regulating services, the exploration of the Korea-specific value coefficients (K-coefficients) and K-value assessment, and the emerging field of Ecosystem Geography across the Korean Peninsula.

This study aims to identify the cultural landscape characteristics of ‘Eupchi pavilions’(邑治 樓亭, pavilions of county seats) of the early Joseon period by examining records of those contained in the Sinjeung Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam (Newly Revised Augmented Survey of the Geography of Korea) and analyzing their landscape composition and placeness. Eupchi pavilion was not merely an architectural structure but a place imbued with public functions and cultural symbolism, serving as a venue where local officials entertained distinguished guests, practiced Confucian self-cultivation, and interacted with the local people. The location of pavilions were established within the spatial order centered on the Gaeksa(客舍), the symbolic core of Eupchi, and even when their name were derived from natural elements, they were highly symbolic and suggestive, reflecting Confucian ideals such as Deokchi (德治, virtuous governance), In (仁, benevolence), and Gyowha (敎化, moral cultivation) of local customs, as well as the spiritual worldview of the Joseon period. The scenery viewed from Eupchi pavilion was not a sort of the artificially constructed ‘borrowed landscape’(借景), but rather ‘nature and human life as they truly were’, and was a landscape where nature and humanity converged, and where Confucian ideals intersected with the realities of everyday life. Eupchi pavilion as a meaningful point of convergence where Joseon’s nature and culture of the early Joseon period, while linked to the broader pavilion culture of East Asia, represented a cultural landscape materialized through the interaction between the natural environment and the spiritual worldview of the Korean Peninsula at the time.

The purpose of this study is to comparatively analyze and typologize the processes and mechanisms through which 19 mining regions in Korea diverged into different regional industrial paths. To this end, this study establishes ‘crisis’ as the ‘critical juncture’ of path divergence and traces each regional industrial path through a three-stage analytical framework: (1) the period before critical juncture, (2) the critical juncture itself, and (3) the period after the critical juncture. The analysis reveals that the regional industrial paths of Korean mining regions can be classified into four distinct types: ‘Endogenous Path Renewal’, ‘Path Decline and Lock-in’, ‘Exogenous-led Path Creation’, and ‘Macro-regional Path Transition.’ Each type was further distinguished based on a primary criterion: whether the core driver of regional path development originated from endogenous or exogenous factors. Regions developed through endogenous drivers were then classified according to a secondary criterion: the level of negative lock-in. Regions developed through exogenous drivers were classified based on a secondary criterion: the focus of core governance in path development. These results demonstrate that even with identical industrial foundations, crisis response methods and outcomes can differ entirely depending on each region's industrial characteristics and environment. To this end, this research propose a governance model based on autonomous intermediary support organizations.

This study examined the evolution of Copenhagen’s Finger Plan across different periods. First proposed in 1947 and implemented through regional planning along railway corridors in the 1950s and 1960s, it was legally institutionalized in the 1970s and has since been sustained as a long-term planning framework that continues to guide urban development while preserving its foundational principles. Conceptually likening the urban core to a palm and the railway-based development corridors to five fingers extending outward, the plan is commonly referred to as “Finger Plan 1.0” in its original phase. In the 21st century, as climate change emerged as a central planning concern, the model was transformed into a second-generation framework, known as “Finger Plan 2.0,” which demonstrates flexible adaptation to new environmental conditions. Widely regarded as a quintessential model of traditional European urbanism, the Finger Plan has influenced not only European cities but also planning practices in the United States. Its key components—planning rooted in cultural and historical context, socially oriented policies that reinforce publicness, accessibility as a basis for community cohesion, transit systems prioritizing pedestrian routes, and mixed-use, compact land development closely parallel the principles of New Urbanism, a movement that gained traction from the 1980s onward. Addressing urban congestion and regional imbalance, New Urbanism advocates for community-based stability, flexible adaptation, and the practical pursuit of sustainable development. Through a diachronic analysis of the Finger Plan’s evolution and case studies of representative districts, this research seeks to observe and interpret balanced regional development strategies from a geographical perspective.

This study examined the porosity and social meanings of the base border through the lens of border crossing between the U.S. military base and the local community in Okinawa, focusing on Futenma Air Station. The analysis revealed that border crossing into the base was characterized by occasional and selective porosity, functioning as a mechanism that continuously restructured power relations among the United States, Japan, Okinawa, and local residents. Border crossing from the base, on the other hand, appeared through the external diffusion of risks such as aircraft crashes, noise, and environmental pollution, accompanied by affective experiences of anxiety that fostered conflicting perceptions of the base border between actors inside and outside the border. This study demonstrates that even within the highly controlled space of a military base, the base border possesses porosity and is continually reconstructed within socio-spatial relations where power and local responses intersect. Furthermore, it emphasizes the need to extend the material and immaterial effects of border crossing to the bodily and sensory dimensions of experience.

Seoul's wheelchair accessible call taxi is an essential service supporting the mobility rights of transportation-vulnerable groups, yet persistent service inequality issues arise due to regional disparities in waiting times. To address this, this study quantitatively assessed the spatial accessibility of Seoul's wheelchair accessible call taxi using the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) technique. It then employed Quadratic Programming (QP) to derive the optimal vehicle allocation per garage location, aiming to minimize accessibility inequality. The study maintained existing garages while setting and comparing four scenarios: current vehicle allocation, adjusted vehicle allocation, vehicle expansion, and reallocation after expansion. Analysis confirmed that simple reallocation alone improved the demand-weighted standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and Gini coefficient, mitigating regional accessibility gaps. Concurrent vehicle expansion and reallocation simultaneously enhanced both the absolute level of accessibility and equity. This study is significant as it provides foundational policy data to enhance the spatial equity of paratransit services for persons with disabilities and proposes an optimization methodology for efficiently allocating limited resources.

This study quantitatively verified the applicability of the ecosystem service assessment map, which was created using the Land Cover Map and InVEST, to 189 coastal dunes in South Korea. Through spatial data overlay analysis, the effectiveness of the ecosystem service assessment results for each dune was identified, and the item-specific applicability was compared. The analysis showed that items such as carbon storage, air purification, urban heat island mitigation, and baseflow contribution allowed for highly reliable assessment in most dunes. However, water purification and ecotourism items were found to have limitations in applicability due to the ecological characteristics of coastal dunes (soil and wetlands, resolution constraints). Furthermore, it was revealed that a spatial limitation—the omission of beach and tidal flat areas in the Land Cover Map—was influencing the assessment results. To compensate for these limitations, a method for integrating vegetation maps and land cover data based on regular vegetation surveys was proposed. This study confirmed the applicability of quantitative assessment for coastal dune ecosystem services and, by presenting constraints and improvement conditions for the utilization of national spatial data, is expected to be utilized as fundamental data for future coastal ecosystem service assessment and management policy establishment.

Since the ‘emotional turn’ in Anglo-American geography during the 2000s, discussions on emotion and affect within Korean geography have achieved significant quantitative and qualitative growth. However, the subtle nuances between these two concepts and the ensuing epistemological and ontological debates remain insufficiently illuminated. Responding to this academic gap, this article critically reviews the geographical genealogy of emotion and affect research, while proposing psychoanalytic theory as a lens to decipher the mechanisms by which these two forces operate in the real world. Specifically, by providing a spatial reading of Freud’s ‘models of the psyche’ and Lacan’s ‘topology of subjectivity,’ this article explores the material-psychological spacetime generated where the conscious/ unconscious, subject/other, and inside/outside are ceaselessly intertwined. In particular, through a rigorous examination of case studies in psychoanalytic geography, it elucidates how the unconscious, operating beneath the surface of emotion and affect, mediates the topological dynamics between humans and space. Ultimately, the article demonstrates that psychoanalysis is not merely an abstract theory, but a practical and meaningful geographical lens for understanding socio-spatial conflicts and contradictions in reality.

This study originates from the recognition that a new scholarly approach is needed to address the East Sea/Sea of Japan naming issue, and from the intention to apply the perspective of critical toponymy, which prior research has identified as a key framework for sustainable geographical naming. The naming of the East Sea is a representative case of a disputed toponym, as the states involved advance conflicting arguments based on clearly defined positions, while users of geographical names around the world inevitably participate in various ways in shaping or resolving the issue. These characteristics provide sufficient justification for applying critical toponymy, which focuses on uncovering the power relations and political dynamics at work in the creation, use, and alteration of geographical names. To analyze this issue, the study adopts a framework that examines: the formation of place perceptions and collective memories embedded in each country’s position and proposals; the development of discourses aimed at legitimizing particular naming practices; and the pathways through which political forces and power are exercised to influence the actors who use and determine place names. The application of a critical toponymic perspective to the East Sea/Sea of Japan dispute is found to enhance both the breadth and the analytical clarity with which we understand the memories tied to each name, the competing logics surrounding dual and single naming, and the decision-making processes of states, map producers, media organizations, and other actors involved in selecting between these naming conventions.

Recent tourism policy and scholarship in Korea have treated the camping sector as potential infrastructure for promoting longer-stay tourism. Against this backdrop, this study empirically examines how the spatial structure of campground supply affects the mean length of stay. Using 2024 cross-sectional data for 226 basic local governments, we model average overnight stays as a function of accommodation capacity density and the share of camping capacity, controlling for tourism resources, environmental conditions, and regional characteristics. Spatial regression models are estimated with eigenvector spatial filtering (ESF) adopted as the main specification. The results show that both larger accommodation capacity and a higher camping share are associated with shorter, rather than longer, stays, contrary to prevailing policy and academic expectations. This suggests that simply expanding campground supply is unlikely to activate stay-oriented tourism and that the policy assumption linking camping growth to longer stays needs to be reconsidered.