Spatial Configuration of Early Pyongyang in Goguryeo

This article aims to synthesize the principal debates on Goguryeo’s Early Pyongyang and, on that basis, to explore new research directions. A longstanding issue has been the location of the hub/center on the Pyongyang plain during this early phase. Textual sources alone have not allowed scholars to fix a single candidate, and the material record has likewise remained insufficient to be decisive. As a result, multiple hypotheses have coexisted—most notably the Anhakgung hypothesis, the Cheongam-ri earthen rampart hypothesis, the Daeseong District hypothesis, and a relocation (mobility) hypothesis.<br/> From the perspective of the Daeseong District hypothesis, this study offers several suggestive clues. First, a potsherd bearing the inscription “West Temple” (西寺) recovered from the Cheongam-ri Temple Site, together with a roof tile inscribed with the graph “east” (東) from the Sango-ri Temple Site, raises the possibility that the relative positions of these two temple sites constituted an eastwest geographic axis for the lowland hub/center of Early Pyongyang. Second, traces of a rectilinear, grid-pattern street subdivision—blocks measuring roughly 140 meters per side (about 400 cheok/chi)—have been identified at four locales across the Daeseong District, including the western side of Anhakgung and the areas of Rimheung-dong and Cheongho-dong. The fact that this grid aligns with the axes of the Sango-ri and Cheongam-ri temple sites is noteworthy and can be interpreted as part of a planned spatial organization.<br/> At the same time, it is significant that the axes inferred from this grid do not coincide with the axial orientation of Anhakgung. This offers additional circumstantial evidence that Anhakgung was unlikely to have been constructed during the Early Pyongyang period.