Dolmens have always interested me, at least ever since I found out about them. In fact, I first encountered them on the List, reading about the newly inscribed Antequera Dolmens back in 2016 and then trying unsuccessfully to visit them the following year. Preparing for my trip to Korea in June 2023, I tried my very best to research on how to see them the best way, and especially with the website as a major source, I decided that Gochang would be the best place to experience this site. Staying the night in Jeonju, Gochang would be a 1:40-long bus ride away and 40 minutes away from Gwangju, from which I took the next bus to Suncheon as there was no direct one from Gochang, so there was no time to spare. Despite a bus route existing between the bus station and the site, my failure to find the bus stop led to our decision to just take a taxi there - the ride took under 10 minutes with no traffic. Finally, it was time for me to see my first dolmens!

The Gochang Dolmen Site consists of six "courses" or sections; the main path from the visitor center and museum area leads straight to the expansive third course, and this forms a linear route with the first and second courses to the right and the fifth course to the left. The fourth course is the quarry, located further up the hill behind the third course, and the sixth course is nearly the opposite direction from the museum and around the same distance away. As a result, I only really visited and explored the first three courses and felt pretty satisfied with that visit, though I regret leaving out the sixth course as it turns out it has the most impressive table dolmen in the area. Course 1 is on a little hilltop, set up quite like an open-air museum showcasing many types of dolmens in a very small area. Course 2 is quite large and spread out, with many of the most impressive go-table and aboveground dolmens. Course 3 was the only place with a crowd thanks to easy access and the presence of a flower field at the base of the hill, offering a perfect frame for the slope densely littered by dolmens, mostly of the capstone type. I walked all the way up the slope until the dolmens thinned out and the forest started to close in, but this trail actually leads all the way to the Ungok Reservoir Wetland. Going back down, I took a trail straight through the dolmen field (attached picture), which also had a diversion to Course 4; I'd say this is the best way to appreciate the density of dolmens in this course. Course 5, from what I hear, is mostly capstone dolmens as well, and arranged in rows. Each dolmen is numbered.

I'd never been particularly impressed with even the table dolmens, let alone the little capstones, which is why I chose to skip Ganghwa for this trip; something told me a visit to see the single large dolmen wouldn't feel so worthwhile. I think Gochang demonstrates the OUV of the site extremely well; sometimes quantity comes before quality (or maybe in this case, quantity directly contributes to quality). These are ancient cemeteries of Korea, and while the site of a single tomb may or may not merit some wonder, I think the value mostly lies in the preservation of complete graveyards that stretch kilometers in the distance, illustrating the burial practices of the ancient culture that built them. Really, these dolmens aren't that ancient or ahead of their time - at the time of their creation, the Egyptian pyramids had already stood for about two millennia, and under a millennium later, the Baekje were building impressive pagodas and tombs in this very region. But that does not mean the thousands of dolmens, approximately 40% of the world's inventory of them, that litter the landscape of Korea and their standing the test of time is unremarkable, for it is anything but. Gochang is also just a perfect mix of history and nature, and the visitor experience of hiking around these dolmens is truly great and something I'd recommend to anyone visiting the country.