Korea's solar salt-farming industry began in the Juan area of Incheon in 1907, during the Korean Empire period, and during the Japanese colonial era, solar salt farms remained concentrated in the Incheon and Gyeonggi region. But once demand for solar salt surged after Korea's liberation, solar salt farms began to be established in areas of South Jeolla Province such as Sinan and Yeonggwang as well. Jeungdo Island's Taepyeong Salt Farm was established in 1953, within this broader trend, specifically to resettle refugees displaced by the Korean War and to increase salt production.
The salt farm built this way spans 4.62 million square meters, making it the largest single salt farm in the country. This salt field, built by hand by people who had fled the war and were rebuilding their lives from nothing, was designated National Registered Cultural Heritage No. 360 on November 22, 2007, formally recognized by the state as cultural heritage. That the traces of labor undertaken purely for survival came, more than half a century later, to be recognized as cultural heritage illustrates how the ordinary labor of ordinary people can come to acquire historical value.
The registered heritage area—1,089,088 square meters in the county yearbook—is not identical to the roughly 4.62-million-square-meter operating property used in tourism descriptions. One is a protected boundary; the other is a broader workplace. Salt also requires managed reservoirs, evaporation ponds, crystallizing beds, repeated labor, storage, and modern food-safety rules. Heritage status does not certify every retail product or freeze a working farm in its 1953 form. Follow operating routes and confirm seasonal access.