Geumjeongsanseong Fortress

The Japanese landed at Busan in April 1592 and took the town in a day. A century later, in 1703, the Joseon court walled the mountain behind the city so that it could not happen again: about eighteen kilometres of rampart along the ridges of Geumjeongsan, with four gates and a garrison. It is the largest mountain fortress in the country. The wall was built for a war that never came, and was garrisoned into the nineteenth century, then let go. Restoration since the 1970s has rebuilt the gates and long stretches of the rampart, and the ridge path along it is now one of Busan's great walks, with the city and the sea on one side and forest on the other. Inside the wall is a village, and the village makes rice wine. Sanseong makgeolli, milky and slightly sour, has been brewed here since the garrison days — the story goes that it was the soldiers' drink — and it is what hikers come down for, with goat stew or duck. Beomeosa, one of Korea's great temples, is on the mountain's eastern slope.

Original Text

Where it is

Region

Geumjeong-gu, Busan

Designation

Historic Site · 사적