5000 Won Taejon International Exposition

The Taejon Expo ran from August to November 1993 under the theme "The Challenge of a New Road of Development," drawing 108 participating nations and over 14 million visitors to what was then a mid-sized industrial city in South Chungcheong Province. South Korea used the event aggressively as a soft-power exercise, positioning the country as a technological peer of Japan and the established Western economies less than a decade after the Seoul Olympics had introduced it to the same stage.

KM#80 was one of several commemorative denominations issued for the Expo. The .925 silver series saw modest collector uptake domestically but remained largely unknown in Western numismatic markets.