On June 5, 1908, the government of North Chungcheong Province packed up and left Chungju for Cheongju. On October 27, 2026, Chungju’s mayor arrived at the Cheongju provincial office on foot, after a two-day, 60-kilometer walk, to ask for it back.
Lee Dong-seok, who at 41 is the youngest city or county head ever elected in the province, set out from Chungju City Hall at 9 a.m. on October 26 after a send-off rally that drew about 1,000 residents. He walked through Eumseong and Jeungpyeong counties and reached the provincial office’s main gate around 2 p.m. the next day with roughly 100 Chungju citizens. At a press conference there he called the return of the office “a historic task” and said Chungju’s challenge was only beginning.
What he is actually asking for
South Korea’s provinces (do) are run from a provincial office (docheong), the seat of the elected governor and most provincial agencies. North Chungcheong, or Chungbuk, was created on August 4, 1896 with its office in Chungju. Twelve years later, under Japanese influence in the final years of the Korean Empire, the office was moved to Cheongju, where it has stayed ever since. Cheongju has since grown into the province’s dominant city; Chungju, to its east, has not.
Lee’s argument is that this imbalance has become structural. By his count, Cheongju holds 55 percent of the province’s residents and 80 percent of its province-affiliated public institutions. His pitch is framed as a package rather than a land grab: pay for the move with central-government money and existing public land to keep the burden on the provincial budget low, and scatter the agencies attached to the provincial office across the province’s other ten cities and counties so that everyone gets something. He also ties the request to Cheongju’s own ambition to be designated a “special city,” a status that would give it more autonomy and, in Lee’s telling, makes a separate provincial seat more logical.
Why almost nobody else is cheering
The reaction from the province itself was, in a word, embarrassed. A provincial official told Nocut News the demand was awkward given the hundreds of billions of won (several hundred million dollars) spent over the years remodeling the current office, and said any relocation would require the views of all residents plus a formal cost-benefit review. Cheongju has not responded, apparently because it does not want the dispute tangled up with its special-city bid. The province’s other cities and counties are staying quiet to avoid a regional feud.
The sharper blow came on November 3 from within Lee’s own People Power Party. A group of local party figures, led by former provincial council member Park Ji-heon, held a press conference at the same provincial office gate to “resolutely oppose” the plan. Their case: a historical grievance is not a policy justification, the office serves all 11 cities and counties, and what Chungju really needs is high-tech employers, better industrial parks and reasons for young people to stay. Moving a government building, they argued, would simply create a new imbalance.
Lee is not an obvious person to lose a long-shot fight. A former television reporter and presidential-office staffer, he won the mayoralty in June by 124 votes out of more than 105,000 cast, after trailing for most of election night. His city has also commissioned a feasibility study on the relocation, so the demand now has a paper trail behind it.
What happens next
Lee says he will visit the province’s other mayors and county heads and its National Assembly members, launch a signature campaign among Chungju residents, and then take the petition to the National Assembly and the presidential office. None of that forces a decision; the governor and provincial council would have to agree, and no vote or timeline exists. For now, Chungju has a mayor with sore feet, a feasibility study and a 118-year-old grievance, and Cheongju has the building.
Sources
- Nocut News — Mayor Lee Dong-seok of Chungju Marches 60km for “Return of Provincial Office” … Consensus Remains Uncertain
- Nocut News — Party Shows Rejection Over Call by Chungju Mayor Lee Dong-seok for “Return of Provincial Office”
- Kyunghyang Shinmun — By just ‘124-vote margin’… Mayor-elect Lee Dong-seok of Chungju seizes the title of the youngest-ever local government head
- Chungcheongbuk-do — History of the provincial office