Request to Designate 'Gijang Eupseong' as a National Historic Site... Gijang-gun Focuses Administrative Efforts

On June 5, Oh Gyu-seok, Mayor of Gijang County, Visits Cultural Heritage Administration to Request Prompt Designation

The area around the western fortress wall of Busan Gijang Eupseong.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] On the 5th, Busan’s Gijang-gun requested the Cultural Heritage Administration to designate Gijang Eupseong as a national historic site.

On this day, Gijang County Governor Oh Gyu-seok and related officials revisited the Daejeon Government Complex, following their visit in May, to meet with Park Han-gyu, Director of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Bureau, and Jeong Young-hoon, Director of the Preservation Policy Division. They explained the academic value and preservation and maintenance plans of Gijang Eupseong and emphasized the necessity of its designation as a historic site.

Gijang-gun has been focusing administrative efforts on the national historic site designation of Gijang Eupseong. After completing the necessary survey service for designation in 2019, they applied for the national cultural heritage designation of Gijang Eupseong to the Cultural Heritage Administration earlier this year, and it is currently under review.

Gijang Eupseong is a representative cultural asset of Gijang-gun, constructed in 1425. Since 1999, Gijang-gun and Busan City have invested 21.6 billion KRW in restoration and maintenance projects, acquiring approximately 88% of the entire project site, consisting of 146 plots totaling 23,984㎡.

Recently, during the demolition of buildings on the acquired land as part of the Gijang Eupseong maintenance project, about 70 meters of the western fortress wall was confirmed to be very well preserved, which Gijang-gun expects will positively influence the historic site designation review.

The western fortress wall has a maximum remaining height of 3.4 meters, with most related facilities such as the inner wall section (inside part of the fortress wall), the ascending stairs, and the slope well preserved.

An excavation survey of this area is planned for October. Academic experts anticipate securing scholarly materials that can confirm the structure of the coastal fortresses built along the southeastern coast during the Joseon Dynasty.

Since the first academic investigation of the southern fortress wall in 2010, various opinions on the fortress structure have been raised, leading to more than five focused academic excavations, including city excavations, from 2017 to 2020.

As a result, it was confirmed that a moat was constructed along the entire front of the fortress wall, and that the southern gate had undergone two or more expansions.

Accordingly, after specifying the scale of the southern gate (Gongjinmun) including the Ongseong pavilion and conducting verification work based on historical documents, restoration and maintenance work began.

Governor Oh Gyu-seok of Gijang-gun stated, “Gijang Eupseong is a typical early Joseon coastal fortress that possesses historical significance, rarity, and authenticity. It has sufficient value for national historic site designation, so we ask the Cultural Heritage Administration to promptly carry out related procedures such as on-site investigations.”

Governor Oh added, “Once Gijang Eupseong is designated as a historic site, we will preserve the western fortress wall in its original form as much as possible, create a resident-friendly resting area in the surrounding region, and develop Gijang Market as a tourism resource linked with historical and cultural heritage.”

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