Daegu, formerly spelled Taegu and officially known as the Daegu Metropolitan City, is a city in South Korea.
It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in Korea after Seoul and Busan; it is the third-largest official metropolitan area in the nation with over 2.5 million residents; and the second-largest city after Busan in the Yeongnam region in southwestern Korean Peninsula. It was overtaken by Incheon in the 2000s, but still it is said to be the third city, according to the "Act on the Establishment of Daegu City and Incheon City". Daegu and surrounding North Gyeongsang Province are often referred to as Daegu-Gyeongbuk, with a total population over 5 million.
Daegu is located in south-eastern Korea about 80 km from the seacoast, near the Geumho River and its mainstream, Nakdong River in Gyeongsang-do. The Daegu basin is the central plain of the Yeongnam region. In ancient times, the Daegu area was part of the proto-kingdom Jinhan. Subsequently, Daegu came under the control of the Silla Kingdom, which unified the Korean Peninsula. During the Joseon Dynasty period, the city was the capital of Gyeongsang-do, one of the traditional eight provinces of the country.