Hwaseong Fortress — fortress
Image by RUINS from Pixabay

Hwaseong Fortress

  • 2 min read
  • 37.281° N 127.010° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • Building the fortress took about 700,000 person-hours and cost the treasury 870,000 nyang, plus 1,500 sacks of rice to pay the workers.
  • To fill his new city, King Jeongjo resettled families in Suwon at great expense and exempted them from taxes for ten years.
  • The bell hanging in Paldalmun was first cast in Gaeseong in 1080 and recast in 1687 by a Buddhist chief priest for temple ceremonies.
  • Paldalmun survived the Korean War intact, but the structures beside it were never rebuilt because of modern roads, leaving it alone in a traffic roundabout.
  • The beacon tower was placed in a direct line with the king's palace so that Jeongjo himself could read its smoke and fire signals.
  • The north-east pavilion was meant as a command post, but its setting above a lotus pond made it a favourite place for feasts instead.
  • The South Floodgate, with nine arches over the Suwon stream, was swept away by floods in 1846 and 1922 and only rebuilt in 2010–2012.
  • Enlarged to some 600 rooms, the detached palace inside the walls became the largest of its kind in Korea.
  • In 1795 the palace hosted the 60th birthday celebration of Jeongjo's mother, Lady Hyegyeong, during a royal procession from Seoul.
  • A French consul in Korea, Henry Chevalier, published an abridged translation of the fortress construction records as early as 1898.

Why it is worth it

Hwaseong is a fortress built out of grief and ambition. King Jeongjo of Joseon raised it between 1794 and 1796 around the town of Suwon to honour his father, Crown Prince Sado, whom Jeongjo's own grandfather, King Yeongjo, had put to death by locking him in a rice chest. The king moved his father's remains nearby and, it seems, planned to move the capital here too, away from the factional feuds of the court in Seoul. The result is a walled city whose ramparts, gates and towers still ring the centre of modern Suwon.

The fortress was designed by the scholar Jeong Yak-yong, a leading figure of Silhak, the "practical learning" movement that valued science and useful technique. He blended Korean and Chinese fortification models with new methods: brick instead of stone for much of the work, and pulleys and cranes to lift materials. The workers were paid wages rather than conscripted, itself a sign of reform. Unlike older Korean defences, which paired a simple town wall with a separate mountain refuge, Hwaseong combined wall, fortress and town in one, with the four main gates doubling as the town gates.

The wall runs for 5.74 km over two hills and flat ground, and walking it is the best way to see the fortress. Along it stood 48 structures: the great north gate, Janganmun, the largest city gate in Korea, and the south gate, Paldalmun, both topped with two-storey pavilions; floodgates; command posts; secret gates; observation towers; and a beacon tower with five chimneys, whose number of lit fires signalled anything from peace to open battle. Inside the walls stands Hwaseong Haenggung, King Jeongjo's temporary palace.

Much of what you see was rebuilt from the 1970s after heavy damage in the Korean War, and the reconstruction was unusually faithful because of the Hwaseong Seongyeok Uigwe, a ten-volume record of the construction published in 1801, with plans, tools, lists of supervisors and even workers' wages. UNESCO listed the fortress in 1997.

Getting there

The fortress surrounds the centre of Suwon, about 30 km south of Seoul. From Suwon station, buses 11, 13 and 36 reach Paldalmun gate in about 10 to 15 minutes. The nearest airport is Seoul Gimpo (GMP), about 36 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in South Korea 21The Most Impressive UNESCO-Listed Fortresses 18The Most Impressive Fortresses 51The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 92The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

Hwaseong Fortress or Suwon Hwaseong is a Korean fortress surrounding the centre of Suwon, the provincial capital of Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It was built from 1794 to 1796 by King Jeongjo of Joseon to house and honor the remains of his biological father, Crown Prince Sado. Sado had been executed by being locked in a rice chest by his father, King Yeongjo. Located 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Seoul and enclosing much of central Suwon, the fortress includes King Jeongjo's temporary palace. The fortress and enclosed palace were designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. It comprises among many other features a perimeter wall, four main gates, and two sluicegates over the Suwoncheon, Suwon's main stream, which flows through the centre of the fortress.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

37.28073, 127.01020per Wikidata