POSCO Pohang Works and Park1538
The sandbar on Yeongil Bay where Koreaโs first molten iron ran, with a visitor complex next door that is free to enter
Koreaโs first integrated steelworks, built on a sandbar at Yeongil Bay in Pohang. Construction began in 1970 and the first molten iron ran from Blast Furnace No. 1 on 9 June 1973; that iron became the material for shipbuilding, cars and construction, and the heavy and chemical industry drive of the 1970s began to actually turn. The site now covers about 9.5 million square meters, wide enough to hold more than twenty Jamsil Olympic Stadiums, and it keeps a dock inside the fence where ships carrying iron ore and coal tie up directly. The door visitors use is Park1538, a complex opened in 2021, where the exhibition hall, the history museum and the steelworks tour are all free.
๐ By the numbers
This is the order of stages that the phrase integrated steelworks refers to. The five steps below rearrange this pageโs key attractions section into process order, and all of it runs inside one site.
๐ The Story
Pohang Iron and Steel was founded on 1 April 1968 with capital of 400 million won. A country with no capital, no technology and no experience had decided to build a steelworks, so the money ran out first, and in the end the government redirected the claims funds that had come from Japan under the 1965 treaty into the project. What Park Tae-joon, the company president, said as ground was broken at Yeongil Bay in April 1970 sums the place up: this steelworks is being built with money paid for our ancestorsโ blood, so if we fail we should turn right and walk into the bay together.
On the morning of 9 June 1973 the first molten iron ran from Blast Furnace No. 1. The first phase was formally completed on 3 July that year, leaving a steelworks with capacity for 1.03 million tons of crude steel standing on a sandbar, and expansions through the second, third and fourth phases lifted capacity past nine million tons by 1983. Steel is called the rice of industry. What that means is that the list of things Korea could make was different before this plant and after it.
The furnace that produced that first iron was shut down on 29 December 2021, after 48 years and six months. POSCO said it would turn the countryโs first blast furnace into a museum in view of what it represents; that plan is still in progress and no opening date has been set. What the company points to as the next chapter is hydrogen-based steelmaking, making iron with hydrogen instead of coal. Which is to say the story that started here half a century ago is not finished.
โ๏ธ The Technology
- โบThe blast furnace and 1538 degreesA vast furnace charged with iron ore and coal together. The number in the visitor complexโs name, Park1538, is the melting point of iron, and the equipment that reaches and holds that temperature is the heart of a steelworks.
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Once lit, a blast furnace runs for decades without being put out: if the inside cools, the iron solidifies and the whole installation is ruined. That is why the end of Blast Furnace No. 1, after 48 years and six months, is described with a word reserved for the last blast. A furnaceโs life runs about as long as a companyโs history.
- โบAn integrated steelworksIronmaking, which draws molten iron from ore; steelmaking, which removes impurities to make steel; and rolling, which flattens it into plate or draws it into wire, all run on one site. This was the countryโs first integrated steelworks.
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Splitting the stages among several companies and doing all of them inside one fence are different kinds of industry. Molten iron has to be reheated once it cools, so the closer the stages sit, the less heat and time are lost. Choosing this arrangement in the 1970s meant scale was part of the calculation from the start.
- โบThe private harborIron ore and coal are entirely imported, so the site keeps a dock where carriers of up to 200,000 tons tie up directly. This is also why steelworks stand on the coast.
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Unloading raw material and then hauling it overland turns that whole leg into cost. If the ship comes to the plant, the leg disappears. Carriers from Australia and Brazil dock here and finished steel goes out by sea again, so the plant is effectively designed facing the water.
- โบPark1538The visitor complex opened in April 2021. It gathers an exhibition hall, a history museum and a hall of fame, is free and open to the public, and the steelworks tour starts here.
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On this track, what separates a closed site from an open one is usually how a company decides to treat visitors. A steelworks is a dangerous workplace of high heat and high noise, and this one still chose to build a separate space and open a door. It is worth seeing as one answer to the question of how to show an industrial site to the public.
๐ญ Where It Sits in Korean Industrial History
This plant is the starting point of the heavy and chemical industry policy of the 1970s. Steel is not a finished product but the material other industries need, so it has to exist before you build ships, cars or buildings. That molten iron ran in Pohang in 1973 and the Pony came out of Ulsan in 1975, two years apart, shows the order plainly. The old phrase about steel being the rice of industry is not a metaphor; it is a description of sequence.
Line up the four sites on this track in order and you can watch the face of an industrial site change. Pohangโs furnace and dock are the 1970s; Ulsanโs conveyor and export pier the 1980s; the museum in Suwon is that era arranged into an exhibition; the office tower in Seongnam is today. Half a century separates the chimney from the office building, and the point of this page is that the starting line was a sandbar.
๐ Five Minutes Before You Go
What you are here to see is not molten iron but sequence. Raw material arrives by ship, becomes iron, becomes steel plate and leaves by ship again, all inside one site. Go in knowing that order and every pipe and conveyor outside the window reads as the same sentence. What follows is limited to what an ordinary visitor with a free booking can actually see.
- Find where the sea is firstWhy a steelworks sits on the coast is the first sentence explaining how this plant is laid out. Iron ore and coal are entirely imported, so 200,000-ton ships berth at the dock itself. Fix the direction of the sea once during the tour and every installation after that starts to look like a line running inland from the water.
- The number in the visitor centerโs nameThe 1538 in Park1538 is the temperature at which iron melts. Hold on to that number before the tour starts and what a blast furnace is for fits into one line. What this plant does, in the end, is reach that temperature and hold it.
- The 1973 photographs in the history museumLay what you can see out of the window over the old photographs on display. The same ground was a sandbar. That contrast is the strongest thing here, and it is also the single image that tells you what the textbook account of economic development actually meant.
- Closer to a town than a factoryAt around 9.5 million square meters, the tour bus drives for a long time. Pipes and conveyors and roads keep going, and that scale is what the phrase integrated steelworks means. Finishing everything from ironmaking to rolling inside one fence leaves a plant no choice but to be this big.
- Photography is completely prohibited on the steelworks leg. The exhibition hall and history museum are a different matter, but commercial shooting needs prior permission, so check in advance if you are travelling with a camera.
- There is a dress code. Trainers or low-heeled shoes are required, and heels, backless sandals and Crocs are not allowed on the steelworks tour. It is a condition attached to a workplace of high heat and high noise.
- Bookings close three days before the visit and changes one day before. This is not somewhere you can decide to see on the day.
- Bringing children comes with conditions. Younger children and older visitors with limited mobility can only take the tour without leaving the bus, and group tours are for pupils in the third year of elementary school and above.
๐งญ Can You Visit?
๐ถ How to Walk It
- 1Book at least three days aheadApply through the official Park1538 booking page, choosing among the exhibition hall, the history museum and the steelworks. Applications close three days before the visit and can be changed up to one day before, so this is not a same-day decision.๐ก Check your shoes first. Heels, sandals and Crocs will not get you onto the steelworks tour.
- 2Set your destination to Park1538Put Park1538 into the navigation rather than the steelworks. At around 9.5 million square meters, the main gate and the visitor complex are not the same place. It is about 30 minutes by car from Pohang KTX station.๐ก The riverside park area is open without a booking, so if you arrive early you can walk there first.
- 3Get the order of the process at the exhibition hallThis is where the sequence is laid out: raw material in, molten iron, steel plate. Fix that order in your head before going out, and you will be able to tell what you are passing inside the works.
- 4See 1973 in the history museumThe records from the years when a steelworks rose on a sandbar are gathered here. Laying todayโs view over the photographs on display is the point of the place, and it is where the textbook account of economic development turns into something physical.๐ก Run through the 1965 treaty claims funds, the 1970 groundbreaking and the first iron in 1973 in that order as you look, and the exhibition sharpens considerably.
- 5Tour the works, then take in PohangPhotography is banned on the tour leg, so you look with your eyes only. All three parts together run about 100 minutes, which leaves the afternoon: Space Walk and Jukdo Market are 20 minutes away by car, and Homigot a little further.๐ก Space Walk is a city that makes steel choosing a steel structure as its landmark. It lands properly only after you have seen the works.
๐บ Pair Your Visit
Pohang Iron and Steel does appear directly on the Korean History Proficiency Test and in school exams. It comes up as the example when questions ask what the claims funds from the 1965 treaty with Japan were spent on, or what the 1970s drive for heavy and chemical industry actually built. Put it on the timeline beside the first and second five-year economic development plans and the modern economic history unit has its frame.
๐ Sources
- Park1538 visitor booking information
- POSCO official: tour applications
- POSCO Newsroom: why are steelworks always by the sea?
- POSCO Newsroom: Koreaโs first molten iron, the story of that day
- POSCO Newsroom: fifty years of POSCO
- POSCO Newsroom: Pohang Blast Furnace No. 1 closes half a century
- National Archives of Korea: Pohang Iron and Steel