1995 municipal annexation in South Korea

The 1995 municipal annexation in South Korea was an administrative event in which many cities and counties joined together into "urban-rural integrated" cities (도농복합시, i.e. city-county consolidation) as of 1 January 1995. Some of the annexation were done later as of 10 May 1995. Some of the counties were annexed to certain metropolitan cities (광역시) as of 1 March 2015.

The purpose of this annexation plan was to resolve certain problems related to municipal government; for instance, discord between administrative districts and life spheres. The relevant municipalities had the same history in that they once belonged to the same county or municipality before the central town of the country was separated as a city.

However, cities separated from old counties of Gwangju (in Gyeonggi Province), Suwon (Hwaseong), Siheung and Bucheon, in the suburbs of Seoul, were not considered for such annexation. For Daejeon, Busan and Gwangju (in Honam area), the remnant counties (Daedeok to Daejeon, Dongnae to Busan, and Gwangsan to Gwangju) were already annexed to the relevant metropolitan cities. Annexation of Ganghwa County to Incheon was not related to Incheon's historical background, but rather a political scheme to expand Incheon in size.

In fact, many of the relevant municipalities before the annexation were formed after the Great municipal annexation in 1914 as the Japanese colonial government and later the South Korean government had implemented a policy to separate urban areas into cities from existing counties.