Questions & Answers

A 'gu' would be the equivalent of a 'ward' or 'borough' -- a major region of a city that has locally elected officials much like a city. In Seoul, for example, Yongsan-gu has its own mayor and council, as does
Seocho-gu.  The 'dong' is a neighborhood level of government for administrative purposes, it does not have elected officials, but handles most ordinary registrations, etc.  Most Koreans will do most of their
'government business' at the 'dong' level, but  to ensure quality services in English, the government has dictated that household registries (change of address), etc for expats should be conducted at the 'gu' office.

The rural equivalents are the province (Do), district (sometimes called county) (Gun), Eup and Myun (subdivisions of Gun) where the Eup is a more populous version of a Myun, and often has the Gun offices and the biggest famers' market in the Gun. The traditional markets followed the 5-day calendar, and back in the day one could buy wallet-day planners that included, along with maps and train schedules, the dates for all the Gun-level market days. The town of Hwasun had a 2-7 market, for example. Country people used those dates as calendar references, so one could ask someone to meet in the county seat on the next market day, and both parties knew when that fell.

The final division at the Myun level is the Ri or Rhee. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the traditional measure of distance. In the early 70s, there were two elected offices in Korea - the president of the country, and the Ri-Jang - head of the village.

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