Northwestern Watchtower of Hwaseong Fortress, Suwon

This is a watchtower for monitoring the surroundings and attacking enemies. Its Korean name, gongsimdon, means “hollow outpost.” This is because a gongsimdon conventionally has no facilities in its tall brick tower apart from an inner staircase and arrowslits in the walls. In Korea, this kind of watchtower was only constructed in Hwaseong Fortress. There were originally three watchtowers in Hwaseong Fortress, but only two remain today.

The Northwestern Watchtower is located next to Hwaseomun Gate and has maintained its original structure built in 1796. It consists of three floors and is topped with a pavilion. The brick wall has many arrowslits to ensure the enemy could not find out where the bullets were coming from. When King Jeongjo visited Hwaseong Fortress the year after it was completed, he was greatly satisfied with this watchtower and emphasized how it was the first of its kind to be built in a Joseon fortress.

Source: Korea Heritage Service signboard ↗ · collected 2026-10-08