Seoul is the most popular destination for many in South Korea. My colleague and I asked our Korean friend to take us somewhere else. We did not want to be entangled with several tourists doing the same sightseeing in popular Seoul destinations. So our friend brought us to Suwon, some 35 km south of Seoul, to visit the infamous Hwaseong Fortress. 

Located in Suwon, the nearest city to the south of Seoul, Hwaseong Fortress is a fortification built between 1794 and 1796. Like the other heritage sites in South Korea, it was constructed by another powerful figure belonging to the Joseon dynasty: King Jeongjo, to commemorate and use as the final resting place of his father, Prince Sado.

The wall is infamous because of Sado, who was executed by his father, King Yeongjo, after failing to obey a command to commit suicide. Our friend noted that Sado was asked to commit suicide after he threatened to kill the son of the highest official (the Royal Consort Yeong) closest to his father Yeongjo. In the summer of 1762, Sado argued with this official. Soon, rumors about Sado trying to enter the upper court to outwit Yeongjo spread like wildfire. However, the court rules indicate that the emperor/king could not kill a direct heir with his own hands. With this, Sado was ordered to climb into a large wooden rice chest. But according to the same friend, some historians claim that Sado died due to mental illness. However, in the memoir of Sado’s wife, she contradicted this claim and narrated a court conspiracy against him.

According to UNESCO Website, Hwaseong Fortress is a piled-stone and brick fortress of the Joseon Dynasty that surrounds the centre of Suwon City, of Gyeonggi-do Province. Its inclusion as a WHS is based on its representation of the pinnacle of 18th-century military architecture, incorporating the best scientific ideas from Europe and East Asia brought together through careful study by scholars from the School of Practical Learning. More importantly, the fortress had a significant influence on the development of Korean architecture, urban planning, landscaping, and related arts. In this regard, the fortress exhibits an important interchange of human values, over some time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning, or landscape design (or criteria ii for selection). Also, the inscription is based on how the Koreans combined traditional fortress-building methods with an innovative site layout that enabled it to deliver defensive, administrative, and commercial functions. This means the fortress bears a unique or at least an exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared (or criteria iii for selection).

When we visited the site, it reminded me so much of the Great Wall of China, except that the wall at Suwon is 5.74 kilometres (3.57 mi) in length and varies between 4 to 6 metres (13–20 ft), originally enclosing 1.3 square kilometres (0.5 sq mi) of land as stated in the brochure. Obviously, the Great Wall of China is much longer than this wall. However, this does not mean Hwaseong could not compete in magnificence and grandiosity.

My friend and I were also informed that once upon a time, there was a plan to transfer the seat of power from Seoul to Suwon but then the Korean War made the Korean government decide to abandon the plan.