Danwon
The everyday Korea of the 18th century, and the fortress city it belonged to.
Where it is
Danwon is the pen name of Kim Hong-do, a court painter of the Joseon dynasty born in 1745. He painted everything a court painter was asked to, but he is loved for his genre pictures: quick, warm drawings of ordinary people at work and at play. A village school, a wrestling match, a smithy, women at the washing place, a ferry, a roadside tavern. The painted course is a village made of those scenes.
The map course is laid around Hanyang, the Joseon capital that is now the centre of Seoul. When the city was founded in the 1390s a wall was built along the ridges of the four hills around it, about 18.6 kilometres in all, with four great gates and four small ones. Long stretches still stand, and people walk them.
Beyond the wall two mountain fortresses guarded the capital, one to the north and one to the south-east. Both are pins on this course.
The picture course
The painted course imitates ink and light colour on old paper. Thatched houses and a few tiled ones sit inside low stone walls, pines lean over the lanes, and pale blue-green paddies fill the gaps between. Each hole passes one scene: the well, a ploughed field, the school, the washing place by a stream, the market, an archery ground, a roof being tiled, the smithy with its fire, the wrestling ring, the ferry crossing, the tavern, and smoke rising from chimneys in the evening.
Par 72 over 4,996 m: 4 par threes, 10 par fours and 4 par fives. The front nine is par 37 (2,653 m) and the back nine par 35 (2,343 m). The longest hole is number 7, a par 5 of 455 m; the shortest is number 12, a par 3 of 120 m.
| Hole | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Par | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| m | 263 | 270 | 124 | 272 | 454 | 272 | 455 | 264 | 279 |
| Hole | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| Par | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| m | 275 | 443 | 120 | 272 | 272 | 120 | 272 | 123 | 446 |
The map course: 9 pins
The map course is played on the real map, from one real place to the next: 9 pins, par 40, 169 km from the first tee to the last pin. Distances are real kilometres; the pictures of the holes are satellite views.
Route of the map course: the tee (T) and the pins in playing order.
- Tee · Songnae StationStation
The tee is at Songnae Station in Bucheon, west of the city.
- 1 · Namsan Seoul TowerSight · 21.9 km · Par 5
The tower on top of Namsan, the southern hill of the old city, whose ridge carries the wall.
- 2 · BukhansanseongSight · 10.4 km · Par 4
The mountain fortress north of the capital, rebuilt in 1711 as a refuge in time of war.
- 3 · Gimpo International AirportAirport · 19.2 km · Par 4
The airport on the western edge of Seoul.
- 4 · InwangsanMountain · 14.5 km · Par 4
The granite hill on the west side of the old city; the wall climbs over it.
- 5 · NamhansanseongSight · 23.2 km · Par 5
The mountain fortress south-east of the capital where the king took refuge in the winter of 1636; a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- 6 · HeunginjimunSight · 18.6 km · Par 4
The great east gate of the city wall, also called Dongdaemun.
- 7 · GimpoTown · 26.7 km · Par 5
A city on the plain where the Han River nears the sea.
- 8 · Bukchon Hanok VillageSight · 24.2 km · Par 5
A neighbourhood of traditional houses between two of the royal palaces.
- 9 · SeolleungSight · 10.1 km · Par 4
A royal tomb of the Joseon dynasty, now surrounded by the city south of the river.
Par and distances are the game's own course data. The pins are real places listed in Wikidata; what is said about them is kept to well-known facts.
Travel notes
Seoul has four clear seasons: blossom in spring, heat and rain in summer, red and yellow hills in autumn, dry cold in winter. The wall can be walked in every one of them, and the gates, the palaces and the two mountain fortresses are the things that stay.
More courses
Sources: Kim Hong-do · Danwon pungsokdo cheop · Seoul City Wall · Heunginjimun · Namhansanseong · Bukhansanseong · Bukchon Hanok Village · Seolleung · Songnae station · Namsan Seoul Tower · Gimpo International Airport · Inwangsan · Dongdaemun · Gimpo · Wikidata (CC0)