PyeongChang with Optimal Natural Conditions for Sporting Events
- Attracts 300,000 Asian skiers and tourists during annual ski season

PyeongChang is a renowned tourist attraction worldwide with its perfect and spectacular beautiful mountains. More tourists, including foreigners, are rushing to ski resorts, including Yongpyong, during the ski season. PyeongChang is also virtually an all-season tourist attraction for tourists who want to appreciate its breathtaking landscape as well as rich traditional and historical heritage because the scenic city presents panoramic views and quite different pictures during all seasons of the year. PyeongChang is a winter sports Mecca in Korea with optimal conditions and surroundings for staging the Olympic Winter Games. The average depth of snow cover in February for the past 10 years maintains 51 cm while the temperature averages -5.4 degrees Celsius, corresponding to -6 degrees recorded in the venue cities of the past Olympic Winter Games.
If PyeongChang becomes the venue of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the 2010 Winter Games would be a memorable Olympics, PyeongChang Mayor Kwon Hyeok-seung said in a recent interview with English-language Magazine NewsWorld. ?he 2010 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games will serve as a turning point to popularize winter sports in the Asian region and widen the sphere of winter sports athletes.
PyeongChang? ski resort attracts about 300,000 foreigners, particularly tourists from Southeast Asian countries, with an increase of about 40 percent per annum,?Mayor Kwon said. A large majority of inbound visitors come from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Yongpyong Resort is Korea? best alpine ski resort, equipped with world-class ski facilities, deluxe hotels, condominiums, as well as golf courses, swimming pools and other leisure-sport facilities. The Phoenix Park Resort is a family-oriented ski and leisure resort offering ski runs, a golf course, swimming pools, tennis courts and other various leisure and sport facilities. The resort's training and convention centers are available to host conventions and forums.
Samyang Daegwallyong Ranch is Asia? largest ranch of farming milch cows covering 6 million pyong (one pyong equals to 3.3 sq. meters), which produces top-quality milk on the fertile highland spread 850 to 1,400 meters above sea level.
A "Snow Village" development plan is under way to develop PyeongChang into an international complex for combining leisure and winter sports centers, Kwon said. The plan envisages that PyeongChang would be a place for providing visitors significant memories during their stay and encouraging them to have more visits.
The theme villages will accommodate traditional log houses of one or two stories and clay houses to lure tourists, as more people tend to be health-conscious.

Tourist attractions and historical heritage
PyeongChang County, approximately four times the size of Seoul, the capital city, is studded with numerous travel attractions, with a treasure of historical relics and traditional heritage. To name a few, the county offers rafting, mountain bicycling, paragliding, character-building training, off road rally, golf, horseback and more winter sports.
Straddled with the Grand Baekdu Mountain Range running from the North to the South along the East Coast is Mt. Odaesan National Park, whose name is derived from appearances of its five peaks ?ike five lotus petals??Birobong, the 1,563-meter-high main peak, Horyeongbong, Durobong, Sangwangbong and Dongdaesan. The national park boasts of decades-old Buddhist temples like Woljeongsa and Sangwonsa. Visitors to Woljeongsa, the headquarters of the fourth parish of the Jogye Buddhist Order can get a glimpse of the Buddhist legacies of Silla Kingdom and Goryeo Dynasty as it houses treasures and tangible cultural properties, including the exquisite seated stone statue of Bodhisattva with a benevolent smile on his lips, designated as Treasure No. 139. Songbo Museum within the precincts of Woljeonsa is a collection of 300 relics from the Gangwon Province area, including restored Gwonseonmun of Sanggwonsa Temple, National Treasure No. 292. Sangwonsa Temple preserves treasures and relics, including the bronze bell (National Treasure No. 36), the seated wooden statue of young Manjusari (National Treasure No. 221), created during the reign of King Sejo of Joseon Dynasty. Historical records indicate that Mt. Odaesan is famous for Utongsu, the fountainhead of the Han River, a symbol of woodenKorea? economic miracle, cutting through Seoul.
A variety of traditional festivals attract visitors. They include the Daegwallong Snow Festival that highlights a snow sculpture-carving contest, snowman making and snow sleighing in January.
?APPY 700?Car Rally is scheduled for July. In September, a literary festival is in store in Bongpyeong, the birthplace of the renowned writer Lee Hyo-seok whose pen name is Gasan, famous for his short story ?hen the Buckwheat Blossoms?in his literary world. Hyosek Cultural Village is a place to visitors who rejoice the fragrance wafting from the brilliant whitecaps of buckwheat flowers and remembers the literary world of the writer? works. Buckwheat is a household name for the province because of buckwheat flowers in full blossom in every autumn and buckwheat noodle, one of the province's representative foods. Near the Hyosek Cultural Village, a center of the time-honored cultural vestige in a beautiful natural settings, is Pyeongcahng Mooee Arts Center, refurbished from an abandoned school, which is now a creative space for young artists from many areas.
At the end of September every year, Gangwon Potato Festival is held in the Hoenggyeri area in Doammyeon along the Daegwallyeong Pass to promote marketing of its mainstay produce, potato, and share the joy of a good harvest.
In October every year, Noseongje Rite is offered for the spirits of the loyal volunteer soldiers who died in a battle of Mt. Noseongsan during action resisting a Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592.
The habitat of ?wiri,?a beautiful aquarium fish, is the PyeongChanggang River. The recent smash hit ?wiri,?an action movie dealing with North Korean conspiracy, was named after the province? native local fish, whose habitat is a clean river. The sensational hit movie has raised up the popularity of swiri as an ornamental fish.
Among other attractions is Baekryong Cave, designated as Natural Monument No. 260 and Lee Seung-bok Memorial Hall, a memorial honored for the late Lee Seung-bok who was gunned down by Communist guerrillas, which remains as a vestige of the Cold War. Daegwallyeong Ski Museum is a collection of various artifacts related to local ski traditions, ranging from folk ski history of the Daegwallyeong Pass area to world ski references, articles on winter Olympics and other information. Korea Native Botanical Garden, opened in 1999 at the entrance of Mt. Odaesan National Park, is a garden of native Korean flowers and plants. It is composed of an indoor garden, a theme park, a terrarium, natural habitats of native flowers and plants.
Cultural properties preserved in PyeongChang include Court Book Depository, Jeongmyeolbogung Shrine, both in Mt. Odaesan National Park, a three-story stone pagoda on Suhangsa Temple Site, rebuilt in the mid-7th century in Goryeo Kingdom located in Suhangri, Jinbumyeon, and a three-story pagoda in Tapdongri, Jinbumyeon. NW