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Daejeon: Great Field... or Great War?
Daejeon's accompanying hanja, quite literally means "Great Field" (daejeon, 大田), fitting given its roots as a wide, flat arable valley. However, it coincidently is a homophone of "Great War" (daejeon, 大戰), and indeed war has touched the city. In 1950, in the midst of the Korean War, the Communist armies had progressed south of Seoul and surrounded then-Taejon on July 17th. Despite being outnumbered, the US 24th Division of the Joint UN Forces held back the tide of the war for 20 days, before its commander went missing in action on the front lines.
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Daejeon is the 5th largest city in South Korea, with a population of approximately 1.5 million. It is located in the centre of Korea and is at the crossroads of national rail and road transport routes, the Gyeongbu railway, Honam railway, Gyeongbu Expressway, and Honam Expressway.
Daejeon hosted Taejeon Expo '93, during which 108 countries participated and 14 million visitors attended.
The city has been promoted as a city of science and education centred about Daedeok Science Town, more lately called Daedeok Innopolis. The Daejeon municipal government dubs itself a core city of research and development and the cradle of Korea's cutting-edge science sector
More than 200 research institutes, including the research and development facilities of Samsung, LG, Korea University of Science and Technology, are located within Daedeok Science Town in Yuseong-gu on the far outskirts of town, locally referred to as "Daedeok Techno Valley". This, plus the "Daedeok Innopolis" cluster of KAIST, Chungnam National University and government research institutes lend themselves to the city's local nickname: the 
