Seoul

The Han basin was contested from the earliest kingdoms: Baekje's first capital stood in the south-east of the present city, where the earthen ramparts of Mongchontoseong and Pungnaptoseong survive, until Goguryeo took the area in the 5th century and Silla seized it in 553. Under Goryeo the site was a secondary capital called Namgyeong. In 1394 Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty, moved his court here and named it Hanyang, laying out Gyeongbokgung palace, the Jongmyo ancestral shrine and the Sajik altars, and enclosing the whole basin the following year with a wall over the four guardian peaks.

Japan's invasions of the 1590s burned the palaces, several of which lay in ruins for centuries until the regent Heungseon Daewongun rebuilt Gyeongbokgung in the 1860s. The city's gates were opened to foreign trade in the late 19th century, electricity and a tramway arrived in the 1890s, and from 1910 the city, renamed Gyeongseong, was the capital of Japanese colonial rule; the independence declaration of 1 March 1919 was read out in the centre. The Korean War then changed the city's hands four times between 1950 and 1951 and left much of it in ruins, with the Han River bridges destroyed.

Reconstruction turned into the growth that Koreans call the miracle on the Han. The population later passed ten million, the city built its first metro line in 1974, reclaimed and developed the flatlands south of the river into Gangnam from the 1970s, and hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics. Democratic protests in 1960, 1980 and 1987 all centred on its streets. Since 2000 the emphasis has shifted to restoration and public space, from the uncovering of the Cheonggyecheon stream to the rebuilding of the Sungnyemun gate after a fire in 2008.

Seoul is the standard by which Korean speech, fashion and media are measured, and the accent of the capital is the basis of standard South Korean. The entertainment companies behind K-pop are based here, television dramas are filmed in its streets, and the city's beauty and cosmetics industry draws visitors from across Asia. Each district carries an identity: Hongdae for student bars and live music, Gangnam for money and consumption, Itaewon for an international mix, Jongno and Insadong for teahouses, calligraphy shops and older bars.

Older ritual survives in the middle of all this. The Jongmyo Jerye is performed each May with music and dance handed down from the court; a changing-of-the-guard ceremony is staged at Gyeongbokgung's gate; and paper lanterns fill the temples before Buddha's Birthday. Hanbok is worn by visitors around the palaces, which admit those dressed in it without charge, and many families still keep the ancestral rites at Seollal and Chuseok, when the city empties as people travel to their hometowns.

Manners are noticeable. Age governs language and seating, drinks are poured for others rather than for oneself and received with two hands, and shoes come off indoors. Public life is quiet on the metro and loud in the restaurant streets after work. Protests and marches are a regular sight around Gwanghwamun and the National Assembly, part of a strong tradition of public demonstration. Baseball and football fill the stadiums at Jamsil and Sangam, with organised chanting and team songs.

About 9.6 million people live within the city limits and roughly 26 million in the wider capital area, which draws in commuters from Incheon and the Gyeonggi new towns. Most households live in high-rise apartment complexes, and where those complexes stand — and what they cost — is a constant subject: Seoul's housing prices are far above the national average and a central political issue. The population of the city itself has fallen slowly for years as families move to cheaper suburbs, even as the metropolitan area keeps growing.

The economy is services, finance, government, media and technology. Head offices cluster in Yeouido, Jongno and Gangnam, the hospital and clinic trade is large enough to attract patients from abroad, and Dongdaemun's clothing wholesale market runs through the night. Days are long by international standards: early commutes, evening work dinners, cram schools that keep teenagers out until late, and convenience stores and delivery services that operate around the clock.

Weekends move outdoors. The Han River parks fill with picnics, bicycles and delivery scooters carrying fried chicken to the grass; hiking clubs in bright jackets take the metro to Bukhansan and Gwanaksan; and cafés serve as living rooms in a city of small flats. The pressing issues are housing costs, the concentration of jobs and universities in the capital at the expense of the provinces, an ageing population and one of the world's lowest birth rates.

Seoul's own dishes are subtler than the chilli-heavy cooking of the south. Seolleongtang, a milky soup of ox bones simmered for many hours and seasoned at the table, is the city's signature, alongside gomtang and the court dishes of the Joseon palace kitchen: sinseollo, a hotpot cooked in a brass vessel with a central chimney, and gujeolpan, a nine-sectioned platter of fillings wrapped in thin pancakes. Samgyetang, whole young chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng, is eaten in the hottest weeks of summer.

Markets are the cheapest and best introduction. Gwangjang Market's alleys are known for bindaetteok, crisp mung-bean pancakes ground on stone mills, mayak gimbap, small seaweed rice rolls, and yukhoe, seasoned raw beef. Namdaemun has its own cooked-food lanes, Noryangjin sells live fish prepared on the spot, and Myeongdong's evening carts do tteokbokki, rice cakes in a sweet chilli sauce, along with skewers, egg bread and hotteok, a griddled pancake filled with melted brown sugar and nuts.

Meat grilled at the table is the standard evening out — samgyeopsal pork belly, galbi short ribs — wrapped in lettuce leaves with garlic and ssamjang bean paste, and followed by cold naengmyeon noodles or a stew. Fried chicken with beer, known as chimaek, is a national institution, and budae-jjigae, the "army stew" of sausage, ham, noodles and kimchi that grew out of post-war base supplies, is easily found. Soju and makgeolli, a cloudy rice wine, accompany most of it, and a revival of craft makgeolli and traditional distilled liquors has taken hold in the old centre.