A Land Ledger of the Korean Empire and the Early Japanese Occupation Period and its Characteristics

Abstract

This paper focuses on a land survey project carried out on the Korean Peninsula in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, which is a period including the end of the Korean Empire and the period immediately after colonization by Japan. The only past documents showing the process of this project whose existence has been clarified are one discovered in the 1980s in Gyeongsangnam­do, Gimhae­gun County office, and the Chang­won­gun land survey project document that the author discovered in the Gyeonsangnam­do Masan City office in 2000, so the discovery of documents has not progressed. This report analyzes documents concerning the Chang­won­gun land survey project before full­scale research on land surveying. In particular, the author's goal was to clarify some of the characteristics of land survey projects in this period by analyzing changes of registries and project implementation processes, and common points and differences between ledgers before and after a survey project.