Seoul City Selects Seoul Color for 2025... Street Tree Light 'Green Aurora'

Second After 2024 Skycoral
Long Summer Evening Colors Embracing Streetlight Glow
Oh Se-hoon "Seoul Color is Urban Design Value"

The representative color of Seoul in 2025 is 'Green Aurora.' Extracted from the green hues of street trees during this summer, which was longer and greener than any other year. Last year, Seoul announced that it would announce the representative color of Seoul annually, and plans to actively utilize the Seoul color in events and marketing hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

On the 28th, Seoul announced that as a result of an investigation and analysis based on AI and data by specialized institutions on keywords in the fields of culture, environment, technology, and lifestyle, the key phrase representing this year's major issues and citizen lifestyles in Seoul was 'long summer.' Reflecting this, the Seoul color was selected as 'Green Aurora,' a green hue embodying calm greenery.

Seoul City Hall adorned with 'Green Aurora,' selected as the Seoul color for 2025. Provided by Seoul City

Seoul added that the color carries a message of comfort and encouragement for citizens' weary daily lives. Especially due to high temperatures and prolonged tropical nights, Seoul's street trees maintained their green color until October, and keywords such as 'blue ginkgo,' 'green autumn leaves,' and 'missing autumn leaves' were frequently mentioned due to delayed foliage changes. This year, both the start and peak times of autumn foliage in Bukhansan were the latest since observations began in 1986.

The color is also based on the green leaves of street trees along the top five most searched and mentioned autumn foliage paths in Seoul from January to October this year. Seoul selected five locations with the highest mentions on blogs and Instagram among 103 '2024 Seoul Good Walking Autumn Foliage Paths' as the basis for color extraction. Seoul Forest had the highest number of mentions with 176,663, followed by Seokchon Lake (113,590), Samcheongdong-gil (40,964), Jeongdong-gil (6,341), and Namsan Park (6,266). Then, based on time-segmented image analysis data of each site, color groups were extracted through the Korea Standard Color Analysis (KSCA) by the National Institute of Technology and Standards.

'Green Aurora' was first showcased on the 28th after sunset at major Seoul landmarks including ▲Namsan Seoul Tower ▲Lotte World Tower ▲World Cup Bridge ▲Shin-Hangju Bridge ▲Gwanghwamun Square (Haechi Madang) ▲Sejong Center for the Performing Arts ▲Seoul City Hall ▲Sebitseom ▲Seoul Botanic Park ▲DDP, and is expected to color Seoul’s nights green until November next year.

The 2024 Seoul color 'Sky Coral,' extracted from the red sunset of the Han River and first selected and announced last year, has also illuminated major Seoul landmarks at night. It has been used as a representative color of Seoul not only in various Seoul Metropolitan Government-hosted events such as the Seoul International Garden Expo, Seoul Fashion Week, Seoul Light, Winter Festa but also overseas at venues like the CES Seoul Pavilion.

This year, KCC will produce Seoul color paints and color books, and designer brand 'Rai' by Lee Cheong-cheong will release hats and scarves featuring the Seoul color, while the pet plant brand Sunday Planet 47 will launch hanging plants applying the Seoul color. Additionally, companies plan to develop goods using Green Aurora.

Kim Hyun-sun, president of the Korea Design Federation, said, "The 2025 Seoul color reflects climate change issues to form a consensus among citizens while selecting a bright and vivid color to convey a hopeful message." She added, "Seoul color is not just a visual decoration but can bring new vitality to citizens' daily lives through the psychological effects of color." Yu Eun-mi, president of the Korean Color Science Association, who participated as an advisor, also explained, "Seoul color should encompass social and cultural issues in a storytelling format. Through a harmonious blend of soft blue and green tones, it captures the freshness and mystery of the aurora in the greenery of street trees seen on summer night walks, developing a distinctive color unique to Seoul."

Oh Se-hoon, mayor of Seoul, stated, "Seoul color is not selected merely to beautify the city but to enhance the value of urban design, improve citizens' quality of life, and strengthen urban competitiveness." He added, "Going forward, Seoul color will become an icon representing Seoul’s future, where nature, people, and space harmonize."

'Green Aurora', selected as the representative color of Seoul in 2025. Provided by Seoul City

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.