Incheon

Incheon's earliest recorded name was Michuhol, noted in 475 under Goguryeo, and for centuries the area was a modest fishing and garrison district guarding the sea approach to the capital. That changed with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876 and the opening of the port, then called Jemulpo, in 1883. Concessions were laid out for Japanese, Chinese and Western residents on the slope above the harbour; banks, consulates, warehouses and Korea's first Western-style park followed, and the first railway on the peninsula ran from here towards Seoul in 1899. Chinese merchants from Shandong settled beside the harbour and founded what is now Korea's only official Chinatown, formed in 1884.

The port made the city a point of arrival for much of what entered Korea, including the first Korean emigrants to leave for Hawaii. Under Japanese rule it was industrialised, and in the Korean War it became the site of the amphibious landing of 15 September 1950, when United Nations forces came ashore against the tides that had made the harbour seem impossible, and retook Seoul within two weeks. Much of the old town was destroyed in the fighting.

Post-war Incheon grew as the capital's industrial port, absorbing shipyards, steel and chemical works. From the 1990s the scale of change was enormous: vast areas of tidal flat were reclaimed, the international airport opened on land between two islands in 2001, the Incheon Bridge followed in 2009, and Songdo was built from nothing as a business district. The city hosted the 2014 Asian Games, and its population is about three million.

Incheon's identity is built on being a place people pass through and settle in. The Chinese community that arrived in the 1880s gave Korea its best-known Chinatown and the dish most associated with it; a sizeable population of ethnic Koreans from China lives in the city today, along with residents from many countries drawn by the airport, the port and the universities in Songdo. Few large Korean cities are as mixed, and the city treats that as part of its character rather than an exception.

The war is remembered in public. Memorials, the landing museum and September ceremonies keep 1950 present, and the statue of General MacArthur in Jayu Park has been a focus of argument between those who see the landing as the city's salvation and those who object to the memorial — a debate usually conducted with placards and police lines rather than damage. Older residents also keep the memory of the port concessions, the tramway and the first railway.

Culturally the city has a strong live-music tradition, marked by the Pentaport rock festival each summer, and the converted warehouses of the Art Platform have given the old quarter a base for artists. Sport matters: the football club at Munhak has a loud following, and the tidal coast supports clam-digging, sea fishing and cycling clubs. Manners are those of the capital area, with the same emphasis on age, two-handed giving and quiet public behaviour.

About three million people live in Incheon, making it the country's third-largest city, and the population has grown steadily while Seoul's has shrunk — many families move here for cheaper apartments and commute back to the capital on the metro or by express bus. Most live in high-rise complexes: older ones inland around Bupyeong and Gyeyang, newer ones in Songdo, Cheongna and Yeongjong, built on reclaimed land with schools and shops planned in from the start.

The economy runs on the airport, the port and manufacturing. Incheon handles a large share of the country's air freight and passengers, the harbour deals with bulk cargo, and steel, machinery and chemical plants line the coast, with a free economic zone offering incentives in Songdo, Cheongna and Yeongjong. Logistics, aviation services and the universities and biotechnology firms in Songdo employ a growing share of residents.

The rhythm is a commuter one. Trains into Seoul fill early, the airport works around the clock in shifts, and evenings gather in the restaurant streets of Bupyeong and Guwol. At weekends people head for the coast: the Wolmido promenade, the mudflats at low tide, the fishing port at Sorae, or the ferries out to the islands. The city's long-running concerns are air quality near the industrial coast, the pace of reclamation and its effect on the tidal flats, and the gap between the new districts and the older neighbourhoods around the port.

The dish that made the city famous is jjajangmyeon, thick wheat noodles under a black sauce of fermented soybean paste, pork and onion. It was created by Chinese cooks in the port quarter for Korean tastes, spread across the country, and is now celebrated in a museum in Chinatown housed in a former restaurant. Its companions in the same restaurants are jjamppong, a fiery seafood noodle soup, and tangsuyuk, sweet-and-sour fried pork. Chinatown's bakeries sell gonggalppang, a hollow bread puffed up in a hot oven, along with moon cakes and buns.

Seafood is the other half. The Yellow Sea gives up blue crab, shrimp, clams, flatfish and octopus, and the harbour restaurants at Wolmido and Sorae serve them raw as hoe, steamed whole, or in spicy stews with vegetables. Autumn is the season most looked forward to, when blue crab is full and salted shrimp is made for the year's kimchi. Grilled clams cooked over coals on the tables by the water are a summer evening fixture.

Sinpo Market is the city's snack larder, best known for dakgangjeong, bite-sized fried chicken in a sticky sweet-chilli glaze with peanuts, sold by the box and often carried home to Seoul. The market also does dumplings, blood sausage and fried vegetables. Beyond that, Incheon eats what the rest of the capital area eats — pork belly grilled at the table, army stew, cold noodles in summer — and the international population around Songdo and the airport has added restaurants from across Asia.