Busosanseong: One Fortress That Was Also a Pleasure Ground and a Last Line

The word "fortress" misleads here. It suggests walls, arrows and sieges, and what actually survives inside Busosanseong is a granary site, some pavilions, a temple and a cliff.

This fortress did two jobs at once, and the fact that both sat inside one perimeter says more about what Baekje had become at Sabi than Gongsanseong does.

Opening hours and location are on the place page for Busosanseong. This article is about how and when it reached its present form, and what the things inside it were doing. For the fortress of the previous capital, see Gongsanseong.

At a glance

Busosan, south of the river
A fortress wrapping Busosan on the south bank of the Baengma River, the walled capital of the Sabi period.
The name comes from the hill
The Samguk Sagi records it as Sabiseong and Soburiseong; the name Busosanseong comes from the hill it sits on.
From about 500 to about 605
A ridge-top fortress is thought to have been here by about 500, and the present form completed around 605.
One component with Gwanbuk-ri
In the World Heritage listing, Busosanseong and the Gwanbuk-ri site form a single component together.

It was not built in one go

Split the dates in two and the fortress reads far better.

A double wall is thought to have been raised to protect the palace when the capital moved from Ungjin to Sabi in 538, the sixteenth year of King Seong. That is the work done as part of moving the capital.

But something was already here. A tewoe-type fortress ringing the summit is thought to have existed by about 500, the twenty-second year of King Dongseong, and the present form to have been completed around 605, the sixth year of King Mu.

Which is why it is an important record of how Baekje fortification developed. Three campaigns of work overlap on one hill, and the way they overlap survives as form.

The type is a compound one, combining a ridge-top ring around the summit with a further wall enclosing the valleys around it. An outer layer grew around an inner one — and the two layers are the two periods.

A granary and a pavilion inside the same wall

The list of what remains inside is what characterises the site.

Inside are granary and Baekje building sites, along with Yeongillu, Sabiru, Goransa and Nakhwaam.

The granary site is where military stores were kept. Nakhwaam is a cliff over the river, Goransa is a temple, and Yeongillu and Sabiru are pavilions. One half of that list prepares for a siege; the other half looks at a view.

The heritage authority reads the combination this way: given the granary and building sites inside, it appears to have been used for military purposes in an emergency and, in ordinary times, as a place where the king and nobles enjoyed the scenery of the Baengma River and Busosan.

That is the difference between Sabi Baekje and Ungjin Baekje. Gongsanseong was a fortress that kept a way out. Busosanseong was the hill behind the palace in a period that did not expect to need one.

Four gates, and where the water left

The east, west and south gate sites survive, and a drain is thought to have run out at the low ground of the north gate site toward the river.

A drain sounds like a footnote and is actually structural. A fortress that encloses valleys collects water and must let it out, and the direction it leaves tells you which side the builders kept low. Here that is the north — the river side.

Nakhwaam, and the weight of a name

The most-visited spot inside is not a stretch of wall but a cliff.

Nakhwaam is among the things that remain inside the fortress, a rock on the north side of Busosan looking down on the Baengma River, with the hexagonal Baekhwajeong pavilion on top of it and the rock falling away to the water below.

A legend about the fall of Sabi attaches to it, and that legend became the name. This article does not promote the legend to a fact. What is certain is this: the fortress was the central mountain fortress of the Sabi period and defended the capital until Baekje fell.

Standing at the cliff, that sentence becomes topography. The river wraps the hill, the fortress is inside it, and there is nothing behind.

Two numbers

The site was designated a Historic Site on 21 January 1963 and covers 1,022,558 square metres. That is about 2.7 times Gongsanseong, and the walking time differs accordingly.

In 2015 it was inscribed as one of the eight components of the Baekje Historic Areas — though not on its own: Busosanseong and the Gwanbuk-ri site are named together as one component. Gwanbuk-ri is where the palace-related buildings stood at the foot of the hill, and the hill and the ground below it were read as a single unit.

On the way back from Nakhwaam, go out of your way to find the granary site. See only the cliff and the pavilions and you will remember this hill as a park; see the storehouse foundations and the same hill reads differently. That both are inside one perimeter is the point of the place.

Worth pairing with this

Frequently asked questions

When was Busosanseong built?

Not all at once. A ridge-top fortress is thought to have existed by about 500; a double wall was raised to protect the palace when the capital moved in 538; and the present form is thought to have been completed around 605.

Does the Samguk Sagi use this name?

No. The Baekje annals record it as Sabiseong and Soburiseong. The name Busosanseong comes from the hill the fortress sits on.

What is left inside?

Granary and Baekje building sites, and Yeongillu, Sabiru, Goransa and Nakhwaam.

Was it a military site or a garden?

It is read as both: used for military purposes in an emergency, and in ordinary times as somewhere the king and nobles enjoyed the river and hill scenery.

Is Busosanseong a World Heritage component on its own?

No. In the Baekje Historic Areas it forms one component together with the Gwanbuk-ri site.