A Bridge of Friendship: Seoul and Tehran

Teheran-ro is a broad ten-lane boulevard cutting through the heart of Gangnam, stretching roughly 3.5 kilometers from Gangnam Station past Yeoksam and Samseong to Samseonggyo Bridge. It is one of the most economically dense streets in Asia—and it owes its name to a diplomatic gesture made in 1977.

On June 7, 1977, Seoul Mayor Ku Ja-chun and Tehran Mayor Gholamreza Nikpey formalized a sister-city relationship between the two capitals. As a symbol of the friendship, both cities agreed to name streets after each other. Seoul's Samneung-ro—named for three royal tombs in the area—was renamed Teheran-ro, and a Seoul Street (خیابان سئول) was designated in the Iranian capital. Remarkably, Seoul Street in Tehran still exists today, located near the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and surviving even through the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

At the time of the renaming, Gangnam was still largely undeveloped—a patchwork of farms and rice paddies on the southern bank of the Han River. The government's push to develop Gangnam through the 1970s and 80s transformed the area beyond recognition. By the 1990s, Teheran-ro had become the address of choice for Korea's technology sector. Daewoo, Samsung, and Hyundai moved in, followed by internet companies in the dot-com era. Today, Naver, Kakao, Line, and Nexon all have major offices here, and the district is known internationally as 'Teheran Valley'—South Korea's answer to Silicon Valley.

On weekday evenings, the pavements fill with startup founders, venture capitalists, and engineers streaming in and out of glass towers. The road that started as a gesture of friendship between two Cold War-era capitals has become one of the defining addresses of Korea's technology economy.