Icheon (; ) is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Together with Yeoju, Icheon is known as a center of South Korean ceramic manufacturing and is a UNESCO City of Crafts and Folk Art. Other famous local products include peaches and rice. Local institutions of higher learning include Korea Tourism College and Chungkang College of Cultural Industries. The city is also home to SK Hynix, the world's second largest memory chip maker.
Neighboring districts include Yeoju, Gwangju, Yongin, and Anseong within Gyeonggi Province, as well as Eumseong County in North Chungcheong Province.
The Yeongdong Expressway and Jungbu Naeryuk Expressway pass through Icheon. In 2016, the city will connect into the Seoul Metropolitan Subway via Yeoju Line's Icheon Station.
Icheon is divided into 2 towns (eup), 8 townships (myeon), and 4 neighbourhoods (dong).
There are 230,000 people living, including about 220,000 Koreans and 11,000 foreigners. More than 1,200 companies employ about 40,000 people.
Icheon has a humid continental climate (Dwa in the Köppen climate classification).
The Icheon Ceramics Village features 300-plus ceramics-making firms in the area of Sugwang-ri, Sindun-myeon, Saeum-dong, and a popular visitor attraction. They use traditional skills and produce porcelains in some 40 traditional firewood kilns. This pottery is recognized both at home and abroad for its quality.
The Saeum-dong and Sindun-myeon areas also include a ceramics village with many ceramics stores. Potters have researched traditional methods and revived the manufacture of ceramics in the style of Goryeo celadon and Joseon white porcelain here. The village is the center of the effort to preserve these traditions.
Icheon was designated as a UNESCO Creative City for Crafts and Folk Art, inÃÂ in 2010. In 2018, the city was elected as the first designated city for Craft and Folk Art among South Korea's creative cities. It served as the designated city until September 2021.
Major building fires occurred on 7 January 2008 and on 29 April 2020.
Icheon is twinned with: