Why it looks like this

Incheon is where modern Korea met the sea: the port opened to foreign trade in 1883, and Korea's only official Chinatown took root beside the harbour, along with Japanese and Western quarters whose small grids survive downtown. The 1950 Incheon landing made the tidal harbour world-famous.

The tides — among the largest in Asia — later became building land. Vast reclamation created the airport island and Songdo International Business District, a city drawn on former mudflats with its own canal-side grid; bridges as long as highways tie the pieces together.