The name of Seosan holds a meaning of a `Fortunate Mountain’. As shown by the name, Seosan provides “Luck, Joy and happiness” for dwellers, and has been considered as a lucky place. Seosan, promoted to the city status in January, 1995, with an area of 740.37㎢, located in the Taean peninsula jutting out from the north-west of Chungcheongnam Province, the mid-west area of Korea, and bounded by Hongseong, Yesan and Dangjin to the east, and Taean and the Yellow Sea to the west.

City with an area of 739.39㎢ takes up 8.6% of the total land surface area of the Chungcheongnam Province and made up of plains and hill areas with a great potential as the western sea area is being developed. Seosan with 1 town, 9 subcounties and 5 dongs, has 151,283 populations with 55,868 households as of December, 2004.

Influenced by a typical continental climate, Seosan especially has a huge temperature gap of the summer and the winter due to the heavy climatic extremity, indicating 11.5℃ of its yearly mean temperature. The average temperature during the month of January is around -1.9°C, while during the month of August is around 25.0°C. The Seosan region has 1,232.1 mm of rainfall of annual average.

Previously, Seosan had many difficulties with the weak industrial structure and transportation of the undeveloped area. However, nowadays we have had dramatic development projects such as the large scale trough land reclamation projects, the Daesan coastal industrial complex and etc. In addition, the accessibility to the national capital region has been improved due to the opening of the West coast expressway.

As of December, 2004, the number of companies registered in Seosan was 9,151 with 40,944 employees. Especially, globally recognized enterprises like Samsung ATOFINA Co., Hyunai Petrochemicals Co., and Hyundai Oilbank Co., are the main contributors of Seosan’s economic growth. In 2006 alone, Seosan’s trade volume reached US$15.6 Million with US$4.96 Billion in export and US$10.64 Million in imports.