The Seoul municipal government said Monday it planned to create a special zone in the center of the city dedicated to traditional Korean music to help preserve musical traditions and attract tourists.

Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to designate a 770-meter stretch of street from Changdeok Palace to Jongno 3-ga Station as a special zone for traditional music by about 2016.

The completion aims to coincide with the completion of the Donhwamun Korean Traditional Performing Arts Center across from the palace, a four-story building with 1,800 square meters of floor space.

The district, if designated, will be reserved for shops and other cultural complexes related to traditional Korean music, according to the government.

The city also plans to make a so-called traditional music belt from the entrance of Mount Namsan to Bukchon Hanok Village, a cluster of traditional Korean houses at the foot of the mountain, to promote the area’s scattered traditional assets in an integrated way.

“The city will come up with diverse tour courses and host diverse performances, exhibitions and attractions in the newly designated areas so that both citizens here and foreign tourists can savor the traditional Korean lifestyle in a comprehensive manner,” said city official Han Mun-cheol.

“We will continue to make efforts to better preserve and further foster the traditional classical music so as to make it a key axis of the Korean cultural wave in the world.” (Yonhap)