Wando-gun Progressing Smoothly in Pursuit of UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List Registration

Possibility Revealed That Cheongsando Gudlejang Rice Field Origin Dates Back Over 700 Years Ago

Scenery of Guduljang Rice Paddy in the Eastern Area of Cheongsando, Wando (Photo by Wando-gun)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Kyung-pil] Wando-gun, Jeollanam-do (Governor Shin Woo-cheol) announced on the 22nd that the UNESCO World Heritage registration is progressing smoothly with the acquisition of empirical evidence (relics) regarding the origin period of the Cheongsando Guduljang rice paddies.

Until now, the construction period of the Guduljang rice paddies was confirmed to be at least about 380 years ago based on the sedimentation period of the soil layer, but the dating results of pottery fragments discovered through research have been confirmed to date back to around 700 years ago.

In particular, this is significant in that the period of residence and farming, which had only been confirmed through historical records such as the exile record of Choi Sa-gyeom during the Goryeo Seonjong period (1092) and the Taejong Sillok (1409) documenting the residence of the people, has now been substantiated with physical evidence.

The county is preparing to draft an application for provisional listing by establishing a management plan through public-private-academic consultations, and plans to submit the application to the Cultural Heritage Administration in December.

Shin Woo-cheol, Governor of Wando-gun, said, “The goal of this project, which started with the dream of possessing a UNESCO World Heritage site in Wando, is to enhance the county’s image, increase domestic and international tourists, revitalize the tourism industry, and link it with the county’s key project, the marine healing industry, to brighten Wando’s future. We will do our best to ensure the project proceeds without any setbacks.”

Meanwhile, to register as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the county conducted a basic academic survey of the entire Wando-gun area in 2017, secured advice from an international academic conference in 2018, and after consultations with the Cultural Heritage Administration in 2019, established data and registration rationale for registering the Guduljang rice paddies in the Cheongsando and Yeoseodo areas, which are recognized as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Cheongsando Guduljang rice paddies, the nation’s first Important Agricultural Heritage, were registered as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in April 2014.

They were constructed by stacking stone retaining walls and compacting soil on steep slopes using a method of laying stones for the Gudul, and notably feature an underground drainage structure connecting the upper paddies to the lower paddies, allowing efficient use of agricultural water.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.