Names of Seoul
| Gyeongseong | |||||||
| Korean name | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hangul | 경성 | ||||||
| Hanja | 京城 | ||||||
|
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization | Gyeongseong |
| McCune–Reischauer | Kyŏngsŏng |
Seoul has been known in the past by the successive names Wiryeseong (위례성; 慰禮城, Baekje era), Namgyeong (남경; 南京, Goryeo era), Hanseong (한성; 漢城, Joseon era) or Hanyang (한양; 漢陽). During the period of Japanese invasion and colonization (1910-1945), Seoul was named Keijō (けいじょう; 京城) (in Japanese) or Gyeongseong (경성; 京城) (in Korean). Its current name is Seoul, and this name has been in use since at least 1882, at times concurrently with other names.
Seoul originated from the Korean word “seo'ul” meaning "capital city". An etymological hypothesis presumes that the origin of the native word “seo'ul” derives from the native name Seorabeol (서라벌; 徐羅伐), which originally referred to Gyeongju, the capital of Silla, then called Geumseong (금성; 金城).
Also believed to be the origin of the name Seoul is "Se-ultari," which literally means "new walls" or "new castle." Seoul was a walled castle city from its construction in the early 15th century until most parts of the walls were destroyed during the Korean War (1950-1953).
Unlike most place names in Korea, "Seoul" has no corresponding hanja (Chinese characters used in the Korean language), although its name is presumed to derive from 徐羅伐 (Seorabeol), so Chinese-speaking countries for decades have referred to the city by its former name: 漢城 ("Hànchéng" in Mandarin, "Hon Sing" in Cantonese and "Hoe Zen" in Shanghainese). On a 1751 map of China and Korea prepared in France, Seoul was marked as "King-Ki-Tao, Capitale de la Coree." The use of "King-Ki-Tao" to refer to Seoul was repeated again on the 1851 Tallis/Rapkin map of both Japan and Korea. For a time during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the transliterated name Sūwū 蘇烏, which closely resembles to the English pronunciation for Seoul, was used.
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