Sendai (仙台) is the largest city in the Tohoku region where the recent earthquake occurred, and is also a sister city to Gwangju.
There is also ‘Daenam-daero’ in Gwangju, which is the Korean pronunciation of Tainan, Taiwan, a sister city. This is because the Taiwanese Consulate in Gwangju was located on this road. After the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and China, it was converted into a Chinese consulate. So, interestingly, the address of the Chinese consulate begins with ‘Daenam-daero, Nam-gu, Gwangju.’
Anyway, this road, which is an automobile road that runs through the central and northern part of Gwangju, also opens as ‘Sendai Road’ like Daenam-daero.
However, unlike ‘Daenam’, the road name was too blatantly Japanese, and at the time, feelings toward Japan were boiling over due to Prime Minister Koizumi’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and his absurd remarks about Dokdo being Japanese territory, so even in Gwangju, it was ‘not necessary’.
If it had been an ordinary road, it would have passed, but since it was a large expressway passing through Gwangju… Eventually, the name was changed to the current ‘Bitgoeul-daero’.