The Embassy of Japan in Seoul () is the

diplomatic mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in South Korea. It is located in

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

, South Korea's capital. In addition to this embassy, Japan also has two consulates in South Korea: one in

Busan Busan (), officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second list of cities in South Korea by population, most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.3 million as of 2024. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economi ...

and one in

Jeju City Jeju City (; ) is the capital of the Jeju Province in South Korea and the largest city on Jeju Island. The city is served by Jeju International Airport (IATA code CJU). Located on an island off the Korean Peninsula, Jeju has mild, warm weather ...

History

The current embassy was opened on 18 December 1965, following the re-establishment of relations between the two countries, under its first ambassador, Toshikatsu Maeda. In 2015, the embassy was moved to the Twin Tree Tower as a temporary location while the embassy building is being renovated.

Design

The building has been described as "a large, red brick structure surrounded by high, barbed-wire-topped walls and guarded at all hours by dozens of police officers".

Demonstrations

The embassy is known as the site of numerous South Korean anti-Japanese demonstrations. In 1974, the embassy was ransacked by angry protesters during a time of heightened tensions between Japan and South Korea. In 2005, two South Koreans sliced off their fingers during a protest related to the

Liancourt Rocks dispute The Liancourt Rocks dispute, also called the Dokdo dispute or the Takeshima dispute, is a territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan regarding sovereignty over the Liancourt Rocks, a group of small islets in the Sea of Japan. The rocks ...

outside the embassy. In 2012, a South Korean driver rammed his truck against the gate of the embassy, claiming it was done to highlight the Liancourt Rocks dispute.

Comfort women protests

Since 1992, the embassy has been a site of weekly Wednesday demonstrations related to the

comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...

issue. The controversial Statue of Peace, related to the comfort women issue, was unveiled in front of the embassy in 2011, causing another lengthy diplomatic row between Japan and South Korea. In 2012, a Chinese man threw four

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see '') is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a Fuse (explosives), fuse (typically a glass bottle filled wit ...

s at the embassy to voice his anger over the comfort women issue. In 2015, an elderly South Korean man set himself on fire during a weekly Wednesday demonstration.

References

External links

* {{Authority control