The Joseon Dynasty (조선; 朝鮮) was established in 1392 when the general Yi Seong-gye (posthumously King Taejo) overthrew the Goryeo Dynasty and moved the capital to Hanyang, present-day Seoul. The dynasty endured until 1897, when King Gojong proclaimed the Korean Empire (Daehan Jeguk), which itself lasted until Japanese annexation in 1910.
Joseon's political order was built on Neo-Confucianism (Seongnihak), which shaped its bureaucracy, legal codes such as the Gyeongguk daejeon (completed 1485), and rigid social hierarchy of yangban aristocrats, jungin technical specialists, sangmin commoners, and cheonmin underclass. Government was organized around the king, the State Council (Uijeongbu), and the Six Ministries, with a civil service recruited through the gwageo examination system.
Major cultural achievements include the creation of the Korean alphabet Hangul by King Sejong the Great, promulgated in 1446 via the Hunminjeongeum. Sejong's reign (1418–1450) also produced advances in astronomy, agriculture, and metallurgy. The Joseon wangjo sillok (Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty) is inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
Foreign relations followed the sadae ("serving the great") tributary framework with Ming and later Qing China, while maintaining gyorin (neighborly relations) with Japan and Jurchen polities. The dynasty was devastated by the Imjin War (1592–1598), when Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions were repelled with Ming assistance and the naval campaigns of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, and by the Manchu invasions of 1627 and 1636.
The 19th century brought internal factionalism, peasant unrest including the Donghak Peasant Revolution (1894), and external pressure. The Treaty of Ganghwa (1876) opened Korea to Japan, and the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) ended Chinese suzerainty, setting the stage for Korea's transformation into an empire and eventual colonization.
For MUN delegates, Joseon is frequently invoked in debates over historical sovereignty, cultural heritage repatriation, and East Asian regional identity.
Example
In 1443, King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty commissioned the creation of Hangul, the Korean phonetic alphabet promulgated three years later in the Hunminjeongeum.
Frequently asked questions
It formally ended in 1897 when King Gojong proclaimed the Korean Empire, though the same Yi royal house continued to reign until Japanese annexation in 1910.
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