It was decided that Namhansanseong, a mountain fortress located near Seoul, would be inscribed as Korea’s latest World Heritage site at the 38th UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Doha, Qatar on June 22.

Namhansanseong is Korea’s 11th UNESCO World Heritage site. The nation’s other UNESCO-inscribed sites are: Seokguram석굴암 Grotto and Bulguksa불국사 Temple; Haeinsa해인사 Temple Janggyeong Panjeon장경판전 where the Tripitaka Koreana woodblocks are stored; Jongmyo종묘 shrine; Changdeokgung창덕궁 Palace, Hwaseong화성 fortress in Suwon; Gyeongju경주 historic areas; Gochang고창, Hwasun화순 and Ganghwa강화 dolmen sites; historic Hahoe하회 and Yangdong양동 villages; Jeju volcanic island and lava tubes; and royal tombs of the Joseon Dynasty.

Namhansanseong was built to defend Joseon’s capital city, but it was also the site of unbearable humiliation for the 500-year-old dynasty. When the 100-thousand-strong Manchurian army of the Qing Dynasty crossed the Yalu River and invaded Joseon in December 1636, in what is now known as the second invasion of the Manchus, then-King Injo and his officials fled to Namhansanseong. Inside the fortress there was only enough food to last about 50 days, but outside the invading army had already surrounded the military citadel and the extreme cold made resistance even harder. The Joseon king and his people closed the fortress gates to wait out the invaders, but the Manchurian troops kept shooting cannons and guns to terrify those inside the fortress. The fate was even worse for those stranded outside the military fort, for they fell haplessly to the extreme cold and invaders’ attacks. It was time for King Injo to make the most difficult decision of his life. He stepped out of the stronghold and surrendered to the Qing Emperor Taizon by kowtowing three times. This incident is recorded in Korean history as the humiliation of Samjeondo삼전도.

But 377 years later, the hurt and disgrace of that day has been redeemed by the fortress being named a UNESCO World Heritage.

Namhansangseong has seen a huge boost in visitors ever since it was included in the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites.



(Man 1) Even though I live in Seoul, I’ve just passed it by and never been inside. It’s really meaningful that I’m here today.
(Woman 2) I decided to see it for myself instead of just reading about it, now that it’s been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The stories are interesting, but I’m already exhausted.
(Man 2) I’m proud that this cultural site has been well preserved. We should pass it down to our children just as well maintained as it is now.

The tour of Namhansanseong begins at its north gate and stops by various buildings before coming to an end at the temporary palace. People begin their tour by walking around the outside walls of the fortress. Here’s tour guide Hong Min-ja to tell us more about the tour program.

This is what Namhansanseong looks like. There are several types of walls surrounding the fort. Wonseong원성, or the original wall, stretches for eight kilometers. Oeseong외성 or the outer walls were built after the Manchurian invasion during King Injo’s reign. Ongseong옹성 were usually constructed to protect the fortress gate, but Namhansanseong’s ongseong were built outside of the fortress. There are five ongseong segments for Namhansanseong, which are built on a mountainous site encompassing a valley.

The enormous fortification, which embodies the fort construction techniques and defensive military engineering concepts of the time, is more than worthy of its title as a World Heritage.

You can see that the outside walls go on continuously. Namhansanseong is a textbook fortress, exhibiting the construction methods from the Three Kingdoms era to the Joseon period.

Namhansanseong stands on a rough mountainous terrain 500 meters above sea level. Its main wall stretches for nine kilometers and the outer wall for more than 2-and-a-half kilometers. The fortress features low-rising walls inside and high and steep exterior walls. There are four main gates and 16 secret side gates. The main gates were usually kept shut to prevent enemy invasions, while provisions and backup troops entered through the side gates. The fortress also houses a temporary palace for the king, indicating that it was used as the world’s first emergency wartime capital. Here’s Professor Lee Hye-eun of Dongguk University to tell us more.

Joseon’s capital had a royal palace in the center, the Jongmyo shrine to its east and the Sajikdan altar to the west. This same configuration is seen in Namhansanseong. There is a temporary palace and to its left is Jwajeon좌전, which served the same function as Jongmyo, and Woosil우실 is situated to the right. This spatial layout illustrates that Namhansanseong functioned as a temporary capital city. There may be a few mountain fortresses that feature alternate palaces, but never one with a spatial composition to serve as an emergency capital. There are a few mountain fortresses in foreign countries in which people lived, but they were civilians, not military personnel. So they cannot have been temporary capitals. Namhansanseong is the world’s only fortress that functioned also as a capital city.

On top of the low-lying walls built along the ridges there are some 1,940 openings from where soldiers could have fired arrows and guns without being detected by enemies. Inside the walls were military barracks, but only traces of them remain today. Namhansanseong is valuable as a testament to the nation’s history of national defense and weapons development. Here’s Professor Lee Hye-eun again.

By the 17th and 18th centuries military weapons had evolved from bows and arrows to rifles and cannons. Other technologies developed to accommodate the vastly improved range of cutting-edge weapons. The fort was built to withstand artillery attacks and the firing holes along the fortress walls were designed differently in size and shape to fit guns and cannons. Every part of the fortress demonstrated that different solutions were sought to adapt to changing military weapons. So the construction technologies used in building Namhansanseong reflected the latest weapons development at the time. Even the way they used rocks and stone blocks evolved, and all these changes have been preserved in Namhansanseong.



Tourists begin their tour from Jeonseungmun전승문, the north gate. Its name has a special meaning, says tour guide Hong Min-ja.

This north gate was named Jeongseungmun by King Jeongjo. The second Manchurian invasion in 1636 took place right in the dead of winter. When Joseon people fled into Namhansanseong and locked themselves inside, the Qing army left mountains of food and many horses outside the stronghold. Having quickly run out of food and clothes, people inside the fortress had no other choice than to go outside and bring the food and horses inside, even though they knew it was a trap. Three hundred troops went out to carry out that mission, but none returned.

Jeonseungmun means the gate of victory. It is ironic that the gate through which 300 troops went out to their death was named so. But King Jeongjo gave that name to remind people of the tragedy so that Joseon would always be victorious from then on. Once visitors pass the north gate, they come to Yeonjubong Ongseong연주봉옹성, supposedly the most beautiful ongseong of Namhansanseong. From the top of Yeonjubong Ongseong people can see the northern slope of Achasan Mountain and the Han River flowing through Namyangju, as well as key areas inside the fortress. Now the tourists head toward the west gate.

In January of 1637 King Injo decided to surrender to the Qing Dynasty. But a Qing messenger tells the Joseon king to come out through the west gate, not the main gate, because he was the one who had done wrong. The king took off his royal garb and dressed up like a commoner before leaving the fortress through the west gate. Seeing their king in such a humiliating state, the people inside the fortress wailed. King Injo went to a dock located in what is now Samjeon-dong in southeast Seoul and bowed down low to Qing Emperor Taizon. Frustration and sadness well up in the hearts of tourists hearing about that heartbreaking incident today.

King Injo was deeply humiliated and even I can feel that mortification as I hear about it. The king and his officials supposedly held five meetings to come to a conclusion to surrender. That tells me what a difficult situation they were in. I was moved by this historical incident and I realized how fortunate we are to live in a strong and economically stable country now. If a country is weak, its people stand to suffer injustice and deprivation.

Next stop is Sueojangdae수어장대, a must-see spot in Namhansanseong. Sueojangdae was a general’s command center and situated at the highest location in the fort. There used to be five jangdae, or command posts, in Namhansanseong, but Sueojangdae is the only one remaining. It was a single-story structure, but another floor was added on and renamed Mumangru무망루 during King Yeongjo’s reign. Mumangru means “never forget” and it was named so by King Yeongjo so that people would not forget the indignity suffered by King Injo and the hardship of the king’s second son, who was taken as a hostage to China for eight years and would later become King Hyojong. There is a large boulder in Sueojangdae’s yard, which is called the General’s Boulder to honor the spirit of General Lee Hoe이회, who oversaw the construction of the east wall, the roughest part of the fortress.

The east wall measures 3 meters in height and up to 7.5 meters in some places. General Lee Hoe was so meticulous that it took him a long time to build this section of the wall. His enemies accused him of wasting money and time by drinking and womanizing, and the general was beheaded at the boulder. But before his execution, the general said his innocence would be proven by an extraordinary event. True to his prediction, at the moment of his beheading, a white hawk flew in from the west, landed on the boulder and cried.

Not far from Sueojangdae is a shrine called Cheongryangdang청량당, built to remember General Lee Hoe and comfort his spirit. Another figure central to the Namhansanseong construction is honored in this shrine and that is Venerable Gakseong각성. Here’s Manhae만해 Museum Director Jeon Bo-sam전보삼 to tell us more about this Buddhist monk.

Monk Gakseong brought his fellow monks to build Namhansanseong. There are nine Buddhist temples inside the fortress – eight to represent the eight provinces and one more to house the command center for Buddhist monk soldiers. King Injo rewarded Monk Gakseong with a government post and other gifts when the monk finished the construction of the 8-kilometer section of the outer wall earlier than planned.

Monk soldiers were trained in martial arts here and weapons were stored in the Buddhist temples. Buddhist monks certainly played an important part in defending the fortress during the 1636 Manchurian invasion. Namhansanseong is an example of how Buddhists came to the defense of their country. Here’s Professor Lee Hye-eun again.



It is interesting that Buddhism played an instrumental role in defending the Confucian-governed Joseon Dynasty. Inside Namhansanseong there were Buddhist temples and Buddhist monks helped build and repair the fortresses and even fought the enemy during the war.

Some parts of Namhansanseong could not withstand the passing of time and some parts were destroyed by the Japanese occupiers. But it is the only fortress in the world that served as a wartime capital and housed an ancestral shrine. Namhansanseong has defended the country at times of crisis and has never fallen to enemy hands. Now Namhansanseong should no longer be remembered as the site of humiliating defeat, but as a world heritage that should be preserved for the good of all mankind.