On Walkabout At: Hwaseong Fortress, South Korea

Hwaseong Fortress in the city of Suwon is a must see tourist site for anyone visiting South Korea.  Suwon is located about 45 minutes south of Seoul and the city’s fortress walls is definitely the most famous feature of this otherwise typical Seoul commuter city.

The impressive fortress walls surround the entire old city of Suwon and are a registered UNESCO World Heritage site:

The fortress is not only impressive to look at, but also features an interesting history:

The idea to build the fortress was first conceived by the Korea’s King Jeongjo (1776-1800). This period of Korean history featured much intrigue within the ruling Yangban class, which ultimately caused King Jeongjo’s father to be murdered. King Jeongjo felt that creating a new, fortified capitol would strengthen the monarchy and dilute the power of the Yangban class. He chose the city of Suwon just south of Seoul to be his new capitol. He moved the tomb of his father to Suwon and began construction of his great fortress in 1794.  Considering that construction began in 1794 by Korean standards the fortress is actually quite new.

The fortress was designed by Jeong Yakyong (1762-1836) who was known nationally as one of Korea’s greatest scholars. He envisioned a fortress that balanced the needs of commerce, the welfare of the people, and military defense. The work force he employed to build the fortress was quite extensive. 642 masons, 335 carpenters, 295 plasterers and 11,820 painters and tilers were used. In total an average of 70,000 laborers were used to work on the fortress every year until completion. Jeong also did something that was unusual for this period, he actually paid his workers for their work instead of conscripting forced laborers to build the fortress.

You can see that the day I visited the fortress it was quite overcast, which is not unusual in Korea.

When construction was completed, the walls averaged a height of nine meters and featured many watch towers, cannons, secret gates, and other fortifications. The total length of the walls is 5 kilometers long. The fortress was the first construction project in Korea to use advanced technology such as cranes to move dirt and blocks into place. It took a total of over 2 years to build the fortress.

I can just imagine the archers shooting arrows on the flanks of any enemy trying to breach these walls.

Over the years more improvements were made to the fortress, but even these great walls couldn’t save Korea from the bickering and ineffective leadership of the Yangban class that would ultimately lead to the annexation of Korea by Japan nearly a hundred years later. Due to the aftermath of the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War, the walls were heavily damaged. In the 1970?s the Korean government decided to restore the walls to their past glory.

The outer wall that sticks out like a claw around the main entrance gate allows defenders to attack anyone trying to breach the gate from their rear.

Today looking at this great fortress one cannot help but imagine the amount of work that went into creating such a massive project. Though the walls never saw any great climatic battles, they still are impressive to see and good way to spend an afternoon in Korea. To walk around the fortress will take approximately 4 hours. The walk up Paldal Mountain is steep so expect to get a good amount of exercise if you choose to walk up the mountain. From the top of Paldal Mountain you can get a bird’s eye view of Suwon and the surrounding area.

My only complaint about the area, if you can call it that, was that I think the city of Suwon can do more with this park. IMHO I think the city should try to give incentives to home owners adjacent to the wall in old Suwon to fix up their houses to look more aesthetic and dare I say more traditionally Korean instead of the many drab buildings adjacent to the fortress now. If the city inside the walls is known as the old city of Suwon shouldn’t it look that way?

However, as I said before make sure you check out the Suwon Fortress at least once while here in Korea. The crowds amazingly enough are not very large even on weekends. Reaching Suwon is easy as well; just take the Seoul city subway to Suwon Station and then have a taxi take you to the fortress. It’s that easy. Now getting up Paldal Mountain and around the entire fortress, that’s a different story.