Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

This study analyzes the process and implications of the transformation of Mount Geumgang into a tourism space by examining the interaction between travelers’ railway guidebooks and Japanese travelogues during the Japanese colonial period. Having built up its reputation since the pre-modern era, Mt. Geumgang emerged as a representative tourist destination for Japanese travelers. The 1910s was a transitional period during which Mt. Geumgang was transformed into a modern tourism space. In this period the Japanese tourism policy concerning Mt. Geumgang was still in the making, leading to disparities between the Japanese colonial government’s planning of tourism sites in Mt. Geumgang and the sites Japanese tourists actually visited. In the 1920s, the construction of tourism infrastructure as well as the Japanese tourists’ sightseeing became centered around the Inner and northern Outer Geumgang. In the 1930s, by utilizing the tourism infrastructure completed in the Inner and northern Outer Geumgang, the Japanese were able to visit Mt. Geumgang more conveniently. In this process, Mt. Geumgang took on meaning as a transit point within the network of “sites of imperial tourism” in the Japanese empire. The reshaping of the space of Mt. Geumgang was also related to the unfolding of the plan for designating Mt. Geumgang as a national park in the 1930s. The transformation of Mt. Geumgang into a modern tourism space under Japanese rule entailed not only changes in the political and economic meanings of Mt. Geumgang but also situating it in the tourism network of the Japanese empire.