The Last Capital City of Baekje

Welcome to the Wanggung-ri Relics Museum!

The name of this area, Wanggung-ri, literally means "Royal Palace Village". It was named so because it is believed to have contained a royal palace at one time in its history. A lot of archaeological findings and other evidence suggested that they belong to a Korean ancient kingdom called Baekje and drew great attention to this area. Baekje was founded in 18 BCE and came to rule the entire southwestern part of the Korean Peninsula until its fall in 660 CE.

Interestingly, none of old Korean history books recorded that Iksan, which is a city where Wanggung-ri is located in now, was the site of one of Baekje’s capitals.

Research has shown that Baekje's first capital was built in today's Seoul, enjoyed for about five hundred years after its foundation. However, Baekje has to move its capital twice thereafter. Today's Buyeo in Chungcheongnam-do was the location of the last capital city of Baekje.

The king of Baekje built a royal palace in Iksan, when the capital city was located in Buyeo. Maybe he didn’t complete his plan for the new capital of his kingdom, or it may have been a temporary palace. Anyway, the palace site in Wanggung-ri provides great clues about what the old Baekje palace looked like.