GYEONGJU

For nearly a thousand years (57 BC – 935 AD), it served as the capital of the Silla Kingdom, the dynasty that first unified the Korean Peninsula. Unlike Seoul, which is a modern metropolis built on top of its history, Gyeongju is often described as a “museum without walls.” The history here is not hidden in basements or archives; it is the landscape itself, defined by rolling burial mounds, ancient statuary, and temple sites that sit casually amidst modern roads, rice paddies, and coffee shops.

The city lies in a basin surrounded by sacred mountains, a geography that naturally fortified the capital and protected the Silla royalty for centuries. During its zenith, Gyeongju was the fourth largest city in the world, a cosmopolitan hub that traded directly with the Tang Dynasty in China and received luxury goods from as far away as Persia and Rome via the Silk Road. This era is referred to as the Golden Kingdom period, a title that references the staggering amount of gold artifacts excavated from the region, far exceeding what has been found in comparable dynasties in East Asia. The Silla elite were known for their lavish lifestyle, and their capital was a city where, according to ancient records, “the roofs were tiled with gold and not a thatched cottage existed.”

Visitors to Gyeongju are immediately struck by its unique skyline. In the city center, strict building height restrictions ensure that no modern structure towers over the ancient burial mounds (tumuli) that dot the landscape. These mounds, coupled with ubiquitous Buddhist architecture, give the city an atmosphere of ancient calm that is rare in modern Korea.

Key landmarks include Cheomseongdae, the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in Asia. Built in the 7th century during the reign of Queen Seondeok, this bottle-shaped stone structure was used to observe the stars to forecast weather and state fortunes, reflecting the Silla reliance on the heavens for agricultural governance. It is constructed from 362 granite blocks, representing the days of the lunar year. Nearby is the Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond, a secondary palace complex used for royal banquets and receiving guests. It was famously known as Anapji, or Goose and Duck Pond, until pottery shards found during a dredging revealed its original Silla name, Wolji, meaning Moon Pond. This name reflects the sophisticated landscape architecture of the Silla period, where the pond was designed with irregular coastlines so that a person walking around it could never see the entire pond at once, creating an illusion of the infinite sea.