The 2025 Korea’s City of Books proclamation ceremony, which is set to announce the host city for the nation’s largest reading culture festival, the 2025 Korea Reading Festival, will take place on March 13 (Thursday) at 3:00 PM at the Peace Education Center within the Aegibong Peace Ecological Park in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Yu In Chon, MCST), in collaboration with the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea (Acting Director Lee Jaesun), continues to designate one local government each year as Korea’s City of Books. Under the initiative launched in 2014 to foster a reading culture across the country, a winner city is selected through public competition to host the annual nationwide Korea Reading Festival in September, designated as the Month of Reading, with support from the Ministry.

Gimpo was selected through last year’s public competition in September to become the 2025  Korea’s City of Books. The city was recognized for its contributions to promoting a culture of reading, including hosting the annual Library Book Festival since 2018 and organizing various reading programs and events like “Sweet Humanities” and “Gimpo Book-a-Round”(a city-wide book-sharing initiative) on the back of the city’s strong reading infrastructure, including seven municipal libraries and four small libraries.

Reading Festival to Appoint Yang Hee-eun as Ambassador and Hold Public Events such as a  Readership Certificate Event

During the proclamation ceremony, Gimpo will be officially declared the City of Books, with the handover of the symbolic flag, a celebratory performance by the Gimpo City Youth Choir, and the appointment of the 2025 Korea Reading Festival ambassador. Korean cultural icon Yang Hee-eun, a longstanding singer and esteemed writer known for the messages of understanding and empathy expressed in her four essay collections, including Just Let It Be and That’s Okay, will take on the role. As part of the proclamation ceremony, Gimpo will issue its first-ever readership certificates[1] and open a Reading Citizens’ Photo Studio, among many other engaging events and programs for the general public.

Year-Round Reading Events under the Theme “Refresh with Books” and the Main Reading Festival Event in September

Following the proclamation, Gimpo will launch a series of reading events to take place year round under the theme “Refresh with Books” and will host the main Reading Festival in September. With the aim to encourage the reading of books as a part of our daily lives, Gimpo also plans to roll out various  unconventional local programs designed to promote reading as a national pastime, including family-centric program “Evenings with Books,” to take place at Taesan Family Park (June), and the Refreshing Celebrity Lecture Series, which will invite famous celebrities, including Lee Ho Seon, Go Myung Hwan, Kim Young Cheol, and Kim Heon, from different fields, to share their stories across different sites in Gimpo (May – August). The main Reading Festival event will be held September 19 – 29. In partnership with relevant organizations and groups in the reading, publishing, bookstore, and library sectors, the city of Gimpo will continue its efforts to promote a culture of reading at Gimpo Hangang Central Park and the surrounding area.

For more details about the year-round reading culture festivals and main events of the 2025 Korea Reading Festival, visit the official website (korearf.kpipa.or.kr).

“We hope that many citizens take part in the diverse reading programs prepared by Gimpo this year and are able to share in the enjoyment of reading together and continue the habit of reading books in their daily lives,” said an MCST policy official. “We look forward to seeing Gimpo evolve into a true City of Books through the 2025 Korea Reading Festival.”