The Joseon Period

The Joseon Period, 1392 to 1897, founded by General Yi Seong-gye, was the longest-reigning dynasty in Korean history and the era that gave classical Korean civilization much of its enduring shape, replacing Goryeo-era Buddhist influence at court with Confucian ideology as the organizing principle of government, education and family life. Its most celebrated ruler, King Sejong the Great, who reigned from 1418 to 1450, oversaw the creation of Hangul, the Korean phonetic writing system, in 1443, a deliberate effort to give ordinary Koreans a script far easier to learn than classical Chinese characters, alongside advances in science, agriculture and military technology. The dynasty survived devastating Japanese invasions under Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 1590s and Manchu Qing invasions in the 1620s and 1630s, after which Joseon pursued a long policy of restricted foreign contact that earned Korea the nickname "the Hermit Kingdom" among Westerners. Growing foreign pressure, including forced trade treaties with Japan and Western powers from the 1870s onward, eroded Joseon sovereignty in the dynasty's final decades before the state was formally reorganized as the Korean Empire in 1897.