City Walls of Wandu Mountain City 丸都山城

After the tomb on top of the mountain in Wandu Mountain City, my guide started to head back down towards the car. On the way out, he motioned to me one of the enduring structures in the Wandu Mountain City. These were the city walls. He was telling me how the city walls used to be three to six meters high. The mountain city was protected on three sides by the mountain as it was built in a valley while the entrance to the city was fortified by these city walls. Not much remains of the walls centuries after. Some parts weren’t even a meter high.

As one visits the ruins of the Korguryo Kingdom, one needs a strong imagination to see how magnificent this place once was. It was indeed difficult to imagine that it was once thriving capital city of a prosperous kingdom. Nowadays it looks more like a farm than an ancient city. The city walls however are a living testament to the city’s glorious past. Even these living testaments are just but a fraction of their former grandeur as most of them aren’t even a meter high. I don’t know how much of these walls are the original one or just reconstructions, but considering that this is a UNESCO world heritage site, a lot of care must have been taken to preserve the original state of the walls.

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