The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will accept applications from local governments to select next year’s South Korean “Culture City of East Asia.”
 
The ministry said on Sunday that it will accept applications from Monday through June 8 and evaluate the applied cities in four categories including city programs to improve the local culture and funding plans for the culture city project.
 
Selected city will hold various exchanges and cooperative activities with Chinese and Japanese cultural cities.
 
The Culture City of East Asia program began in 2014 based on an agreement at the culture ministers’ meeting of South Korea, China and Japan in 2012.
 
The project selects three cities in each of the nations to hold various cultural and artistic events to promote cultural exchanges in the East Asia region.
 
South Korea’s Gwangju, China’s Quanzhou and Japan’s Yokohama were designated as East Asian culture cities in 2014, while South Korea’s Cheongju, Japan’s Niigata and China’s Qingdao were selected in 2015.
 
South Korea's Jeju Island, the Chinese city of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province and Japan's Nara City in Nara Prefecture have been designated as East Asian culture cities for this year.