It is by far South Korea's fastest growing region, with an average GDP growth of 9.7% in 2001-2007[2] that accelerated to 12.4% in 2010.Multimillion-dollar projects are being developed, such as New Asan City centered on the newly built Cheonan-Asan Station that connects Chungnam's largest city, Cheonan, to Seoul Station in less than 30 minutes via the KTX bullet train.There are 220 square kilometres (85 sq mi) of exposed beach which is used to produce salt by solar evaporation.In early 2007, the Republic of Korea government decided to create a special administrative district out of part of the present Chungcheongnam-do Province, near what is now Daejeon.The new district was named Sejong Special Self-Governing City, and was to replace Seoul as the future capital of the Republic of Korea.