Hadongeupseong Walled Town

Hadongeupseong is a typical example of an early Joseon coastal walled town, built in 1417, the seventeenth year of King Taejong. Also known as Gohyeonseong, it stands on Yanggyeongsan Mountain, 149m above sea level. Built in the early Joseon period as a valley-enclosing (pogok-sik) stone-walled fortress close in form to a mountain fortress, its structure and construction methods are important evidence for understanding how early Joseon coastal walled towns and frontier defence walls were built. Unlike lowland walled towns and hill-and-plain walled towns, it is closer to a mountain fortress, and it is significant in the history of fortress construction because a single wall preserves styles ranging from before the promulgation of the Chukseongsindo (New Fortification Plans) to the various forms that appeared during and after the reign of King Sejong. Goha-ri, in present-day Gojeon-myeon, where Hadongeupseong stands, is presumed to have belonged to Nangno-guk, one of the twelve states of Byeonhan during the Three Han period, and, as part of Gaya, was a place of fierce contention with Baekje over external relations. After the fall of Gaya, as the area came under Baekje's sphere of influence it was called Dasaseong; after Silla's unification it was made the seat of Handasa-gun, with its administrative centre at Goha, and it remained the county seat through Goryeo and into Joseon. In 1593, during the Japanese invasions of Korea (the Imjin War), the walled town fell to the forces of Kato Kiyomasa, and the guest house, government office and hyanggyo (local Confucian school) were burned down; in 1661 the government office was relocated to Naegidong in Hoengpochon. It was moved back inside the walls in 1667, but in 1703 the county seat was relocated again, to Udong in Jindap-myeon (Uchidong, Bipa-ri). According to the Sinjeung Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam, an augmented edition of the Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam, the wall measured 1,019 cheok in circumference and 13 cheok in height, a traditional Korean unit, with five wells and one pond inside the wall. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty record that the parapet stood 3 cheok high, with 11 jeokdae (projecting defensive bastions), four gates, three of which had ongseong (crescent-shaped barbicans) built around them; it notes that the wall was high but the town narrow, making it difficult to defend in wartime. Records from the reign of King Munjong give the circumference as 2,943 cheok, with the wall 8 cheok high on flat ground and 7 cheok high on steep ground, a parapet 3 cheok high, 11 jeokdae bastions of which four had already been built, three gates with barbicans, 588 parapet units, five wells and one pond inside the wall, and a moat not yet dug. Mountain ridges of around 150-300m surround the walled town, with ridgelines of about 50m running east or southeast from them enclosing the area. The interior forms a small valley, so that most of the water gathers near the site of the south gate in the southwest and drains east before flowing out to the southwest. The wall now survives for 1,400m, is 4.5m wide, and reaches a maximum surviving height of about 5.2m. Gates with ongseong barbicans stand at the midpoints of the eastern, western and southern wall sections, flanked on either side and at the corners of the wall by square projecting bastions (chiseong); outside the main wall a moat was dug, and running alongside it a horse-deterrent outer wall (yangmajang).

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Where it is

Region

Hadong, Gyeongnam

Designation

Historic Site · 사적