History of Ch'onan

the road through to the south-eastern Yeongnam region (which includes Gimcheon, Daegu, Gyeongju and Dongnae), and leading the other through Gongju and Nonsan to the Honam region (which includes Jeonju, Gwangju, Suncheon, and Yeosu).

Due to its strategic location, Cheonan has also been an important postal center where early communications from the south converged before heading to Seoul, or where messages from the capital diverged into the southern regions. More formal and structured mail services later emerged with the construction of the city’s first postal outlets, and the entire history of mail service in Cheonan (and in South Korea in general since 1883) is now on display in the country’s largest postal museum in Yang-ji-mal in eastern Cheonan.

Cheonan was a relatively small town for much of the early half of the 20th century. As a transportation center, it was the site of an early engagement in the Korean War, the Battle of Cheonan. Then, in 1963 three municipal districts in the area that were growing in size were merged and promoted to the category of si, meaning city, by order of Law No 1176.Thus the City of Cheonan was born, comprising the populations of Cheonan-gun, Cheonan-eup and Hwanseong-myeon. Over the next two decades, the city grew in size by incorporating neighboring populations, including that of Byeongcheon-myeon. In 1973, and in 1975 the city renamed 10