A
dong is, usually, the smallest level of urban-area division to have its own office and staff in South Korea. There are two types of
dong:
legal-status neighborhood () and
administrative neighborhood (). For land property and (old) address,
legal-status neighborhood is mainly used. Unlike what the name indicates, they are not defined by any
written law. Instead, most of names are came from
customary law, which indicates historical names. "Administrative neighborhood", however, is defined by local governments to make an office (community center). Community centers provide some administrative services such as residential/birth registration or death notification, to relieve service pressure of local government. Also, electoral districts are based on administrative neighborhood. In usual cases, an administrative neighborhood is set by population of the area to match demands for the civil services. Because legal-status neighborhood uses historical name, recently developed (populated) area can be grouped as a single legal-status neighborhood. In such places, it can be divided into several administrative neighborhoods.
Sillim-dong is a typical example for this case. For the same reason, there are some inverse cases, i.e. a single administrative neighborhood holding multiple legal-status neighborhoods. Such cases contain an undeveloped suburban area, or a recently declining area. The primary division of a
dong is the
tong (), but divisions at this level and below are used rarely in daily life. Cases using
tong contain school districts or military services. Some
dong are subdivided into
ga (), which are not a separate level of government but only exist for use in addresses. Many major thoroughfares in
Seoul,
Busan, and other cities are also subdivided into
ga. The widest
legal-status dong is
Unseo-dong in Jung District, Incheon Metropolitan City, with an area of . Incheon International Airport occupies most of the area. This is wider than Anyang City, with an area of , and Gyeryong City, with an area of . The narrowest
legal-status dong is Sangdeok-dong in
Jung District, Daegu Metropolitan City, with an area of 2,971 m2 (0.003 km2). == In popular culture ==