Why Korea traditionally had nothing along its rivers

Most major cities tend to develop around rivers, and Korea followed that rule too. But whether in Europe, Africa, the Americas, or Asia, most countries built right beside their rivers and made the most of them by installing things like waterwheels. Korea, though, pretty much only built ferry landings and used rivers solely for transportation. Why was that?

Rivers have something called a river regime coefficient. It's the ratio between the minimum and maximum amount of water flowing through a river over a year. The image shows the Congo River, the most stable river, with a coefficient of 1:4. With a river like this, people can live right beside it without much trouble.

Germany's Rhine River is around 1:8. Again, houses and villages are located right beside the river.

The Yangtze River is a little higher at around 1:22, but that's still nothing too crazy.

The Nile River, which used to cause damage by flooding frequently, is around 1:30. Luckily, the Nile flooded at the same time every year, so people actually used the flooding for farming.

Then there's the Yellow River, whose severe floods constantly claimed countless lives. It's around 1:45. Anything from 1:30 was considered dangerous, so people generally avoided living near it. The Indus River is also extremely high at around 1:60.

So what about Korea?

Even the Yalu River, the most stable river in Korea, starts at 1:100.

The Tumen River is around 1:200.

The Geum River is around 1:299.

The Nakdong River is 1:372.

The Han River is 1:393. Even the Han River flooded constantly before its floodplain was developed into what is now Han River Park. If you look at old photos of the Han River, there was seriously nothing but sandbars for a huge distance around it.

The Yeongsan River is 1:682.

And the final boss, the Seomjin River, is 1:715. That means it carries 715 times more water than when its flow is at its lowest. Of course, Korea has lots of mountains and relatively small drainage basins, but considering that European rivers with fairly similar basin sizes have ratios of 1:4 to 1:26, it's absolutely insane.

The climate, with most rainfall concentrated from June to August, also plays a part. There's even the Korean green frog folktale about a frog whose dying wish was to be buried beside a river. So for Koreans, building a home right beside a river = you're a f*cking lunatic.

Of course, wadis and mountain streams naturally have high river regime coefficients because of their characteristics. But it's practically unheard of for a permanently flowing river like those in Korea to have a coefficient above 700.

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Source: hygall.com