Heuksando has been infamous among Koreans as an island where “wrongdoers” lived in exile. However, located at the southwestern tip of Korea, the island has long been an important hub for international maritime transportation in Northeast Asia.

Sa-ri Village has a cozy port formed by a chain of small rocky islets, called Seven Brothers Rocks, serving as a natural breakwater. With this place as his laboratory, Jeong Yak-jeon wrote the “Record on the Fish Species of Heuksan” (Hyeonsan eobo).

On June 15, 1997, a simple bamboo raft named the East Asian Mediterranean left the shores of Zhejiang Province in southern China. Planned and conducted by a team of Korean and Chinese oceanographers, led by Professor Yoon Myung-chul of Dongguk University in Seoul, the expedition sought to simulate the “drift voyaging,” presumably used by ancient people. Upon its departure, the raft drifted northeast, riding on the currents and southwesterly winds. It ran into a typhoon in the open seas, but eventually reached Heuksando after 17 days.

A Stopover for Winds and Tides
The expedition helped shatter two preconceptions. First, it demonstrated that contact between the Asian continent and the peninsulas was possible using the sea’s natural conditions without the aid of modern technology, thereby eliminating doubts about the ability of ancient people to cross the seas without mechanical aid or proper navigation skills. Second, it overturned the previous continent- centered notion that exchange between the continent and the peninsulas has mainly been carried out along safer overland routes than the more hazardous ocean-going ones. The expedition eventually helped to reinforce the belief that the Dongyi, the forebears of Koreans, were an oceanic people who conducted trade with China, Japan, and countries farther south, and at times engaged in naval battles in the so-called East Asian Mediterranean, the sea partially enclosed by the Asian continent and a series of peninsulas.
Another expedition followed. The raft’s course closely corresponded with the Southern Sea Route, one of the ancient Korea- China routes that facilitated trade between the Goryeo Dynasty and Song China in the 10th through 14th centuries. A branch of the Kuroshio Current, which originates off the east coast of the Philippines, flows northward to Jeju Island via Taiwan and then diverges. One of the subbranches flows north along the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, then skirts by the Liaodong and Shandong peninsulas before heading southward and turning northeast again nearHangzhou Bay to return to the Korean Peninsula. By taking advantage of this current and the seasonal winds —southwesterly from late spring to early summer and northeasterly in October and November — ancient people embarked on sea voyages to and from the continent for fishing and trade. In the “History of Song”(Songshi), a passage from a chapter on Goryeo (Gaoli zhuan) reads: “Departing Dinghai in Mingzhou, we sailed for three days riding the wind, and then arrived at Heuksan five days later, where we entered Goryeo.

Choe Ik-hyeon, a civil official of the late Joseon Dynasty who was banished to Heuksando for his objection to the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa with Japan, is commemorated for his patriotism and contribution to the education of local youths in a monument in Cheonchon-ri Village. The rock behind the monument has an inscription, purportedly carved by Choe, claiming that the Korean Empire was an independent state with a great long history.

From Heuksan, we sailed through a succession of islands big and small and myriad rocks before picking up speed and arrived at the Yeseong River seven days later.”
Called Ningbo today, Mingzhou was an ancient Chinese city at the mouth of the Yangtze River, overlooking the Zhoushan Islands. Mingzhou became a new trading hub when Song, due to challenges by the Liao (Khitans) and Jin (Jurchens), began to lose its hegemony over East Asia, relocated its base of international trade further down the southeastern coast. Ennin (794–864), a Japanese Buddhist monk who embarked on a Silla merchant ship to return home after studying in Tang China, stopped off at Heuksando in the mid-9th century. He wrote in his diary “Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law” (Nitto guho junrei koki) that there were 300 to 400 households on the island. After the island became a stopover for vessels traveling along the Southern Sea Route in the 10th century, its population grew significantly.
On the other hand, in his book “Ecological Guide to Korea” (Taengniji ), written in 1751, the Joseon scholar Yi Jung-hwan cited Yeongam, along the southwestern coast, as the port of departure for the Silla vessels that carried tribute to the Tang court. The book also provides a detailed account of the seaway from Yeongam to Mingzhou: “From here, it takes one day by sea to arrive at Heuksando, and then another day to Hongdo, and still another to Gageodo. With the help of the northeasterly winds, it takes three days from here to reach Dinghai of Ningbofu in Taizhou, China.” Choe Chi-won, the Silla scholar who earned fame as a writer in Tang China, used the same route when he went to China at the age of eleven. And it was along this course that Choe Bu, author of “A Record of Drifting across the Sea” (Pyohaerok), written in 1488, drifted off toward Ming China, with 42 other passengers on board, after their boat had been pummeled by high winds and waves.
But in spite of its celebrated natural conditions and longstanding status as a hub of marine transportation, Heuksando in the minds of most Koreans is not a particularly affluent or attractive place.

Sachon School, where Jeong Yak-jeon taught local children during his time in exile, has been recreated on the hillside in Sa-ri Village.

Black Mountain and Black Sea
The name “Heuksan” reminds many Koreans of a place of exile. Xu Jing, an envoy dispatched from the Song Dynasty to Korea inㅐ the 12th century, wrote in his book “Illustrated Account of Goryeo” (Gaoli tujing) that “Most of Goryeo’s serious offenders who have escaped the death penalty are banished to this place.” As such, the island must have long been a place for outcasts. During the Joseon Dynasty, however, Jejudo and Geojedo surpassed Heuksando in their number of exiles. Besides, as statistics show that one out of every four officials of the early Joseon era were banished at some time, accommodating a large number of persons in exile might not have been a cause for notoriety.
Anyway, it was Jeong Yak-jeon (1758–1816) who brought Heuksando to wider attention as he spent his years of exile on the island in the early 19th century.
The intelligent and talented brothers of the Jeong family — Yakjeon, Yak-jong, and Yak-yong — were once successful government officials, much favored by King Jeongjo. Though Confucian scholars, they were open to Western knowledge and thought, and even took up Catholicism. Their plight started when the persecution of Catholics began in 1801, the year after the death of Jeongjo, who had tolerated the Western religion. Jeong Yak-jong was martyred while Jeong Yak-jeon and Jeong Yak-yong were sent into exile. During the 16 years until his death, Jeong Yak-jeon spent nine years on Uido, the island called “Little Heuksan,” and seven years on today’s Heuksando, called “Big Heuksan.”
Heuksando is also associated with several notable events in Korean history. After the downfall of Goryeo, the new Joseon government relocated the residents of the island, due to the frequent raids by Japanese pirates, to the port of Yeongsanpo in the southwestern part of the mainland. This so-called “island evacuation policy” led to a virtual collapse of East Asian maritime trade in the 15th century and relegated the island to the backstage of history. At a time when the Europeans were heralding the Great Age of Discovery, Joseon and Ming China chose a path of isolation.
The island attracted people again in the 17th century. As central control over the provinces had considerably weakened after years of war with Japan, people who sought to escape from social injustice and oppression found this remote island ideal for a life of seclusion and freedom. Although living conditions were difficult, nature at least treated all beings fairly. Today, visitors to the island can find monuments engraved with the names of these early settlers here and there around the island.
Then, in the early 19th century, a tangled web of tyranny in the form of “corruption in the three sources of national finance,” the arduous lives of the islanders in the “tail section” of society, and their admiration and compassion for the upright scholar living among them in exile gave rise to the grim “myth of Black Mountain.” Indeed, the life of Jeong Yak-jeon, who wrote “Record on the Fish Species of Heuksan” (Hyeonsan eobo, aka Jasan eobo), an excellent reference book on marine biology based on his research and classification of fish in the coastal waters around the island, has inspired a slew of literary works.
In the preface of his book, Jeong Yak-jeon wrote that he prefers to call the island “Hyeonsan” when he writes to his family, because the name “Heuksan” seems so dark and gloomy. In Asian culture, the color black often stands for the north. The midpoint along the Southern Sea Route was known as the “ocean of black water” because it was the northern sea from the standpoint of southern China. Likewise, Heuksan, or “Black Mountain,” meant “northern mountain,” which is supported by the fact that the Kuroshio Current means “black current” in Japanese. Apart from the meaning “black,” however, the character 黑 (heuk in Korean, hei in Chinese, and kuro in Japanese) is also associated with negative connotations of being “bleak” or “wrong,” so it’s understandable why Jeong Yakjeon preferred the character hyeon 玆 (also pronounced ja in Korean), meaning “distant,” “remote,” or “profound.”

Heuksando viewed from the adjacent Jangdo is shrouded in mist.

Middens and Dolmens
How long has Heuksando been inhabited? And why did people come to this island? These questions go beyond the stuffy musings of the historic age, bound by the few written records left by a handful of individuals. Scholars generally agree that today’s climate conditions emerged around 25,000 B.C., when the earth moved past the Würm ice age, the last glacial period, and a more temperate climate started to set in. Since this was just before the melting of glaciers, the sea level was lower than today by some 140 meters. Imagine Heuksando’s coastline around that time. The Heuksan group of 296 islands, both inhabited and uninhabited — including Gageodo, Hongdo, Yeongsando, Jangdo, Sangtaedo, and Hataedo — must have been a single landmass, while the Korean Peninsula was connected with the islands of Japan.
As the climate became milder, people started to live along the shore, catching fish for food. The more adventurous might have migrated following the path of whales, one of the most valuable food sources at that time. Some might have planted rice seeds. Dolmens are closely related to a farming culture. In East Asia, existing dolmens reveal a circular distribution, ranging from Zhejiang Province to the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas of China and the west coast of Korea. It is evidenced by the shell midden found in the Jukhang-ri area of Heuksando, not far from the ferry terminal, and the row of southern-style dolmens on the hillside of Jin-ri, some way above the midden site. It was only 4,000 years ago that the sea rose to its present level.
The port used over the past 4,000 years is today’s Heuksan Port. “Illustrated Account of Goryeo,” from a thousand years ago, states: “Heuksan [Black Mountain] stands close to Baeksan [White Mountain] to its southeast. At first glance, it looks very high and steep, but close up it reveals its peaks rising one above another. There is a cavity in the middle of the small peak in the front, creating a kind of a secret cave wide enough to hide a boat in.” Jin-ri, the village with the dolmen sites, was so named because it was the site of a naval base (jin).

A three-story stone pagoda and a stone lantern stand on the site of Musimsa Meditation Center. The temple was built in the 9th century and operated until the 14th century.

As the ancient book indicates, Heuksan Port was a perfect natural harbor, which still serves as a fishing base, providing supplies and rest for boats going out to fish in the distant seas, and sheltering them from bad weather. It is crowded with fishing boats from April to October, when a large fishery market operates there, though of a lesser scale than the seasonal market of the past, which thrived until the 1970s. In its coastal waters, horse mackerel, mackerel, croaker, shark, hairtail, and skate are caught in abundance. Skate is especially prized by Koreans and can be quite pricey.
The 25.4-kilometer coastal road that encircles the island was completed only 16 years ago. It took no less than 27 years to pave the entire road because the mountainous terrain is so rugged and the forests so dense. Since traveling around the island by sea is much faster and safer than using the overland roadways, many of the villages on the island have their own docking facilities. A drive from Jin-ri, past the shrine hill, and onto the coastal road on the left leads to the former sites of a government guesthouse and an ancient temple called Musimsa Meditation Center. A recent excavation unearthed the site of the guesthouse for foreign envoys that is mentioned in historical records. And the discovery of a roof tile shard, engraved with the name “Musimsa Seonwon,” along with a stone pagoda and a stone lantern, confirmed that this site was home to a Buddhist temple. People in the past might have prayed here for the safety and wellbeing of fishermen and seafarers. From here, a winding uphill road passes Banwolsong (Half Moon Fortress) on Mt. Sangna, which was built in the early 9th century by Jang Bo-go, a legendary maritime hero known as the “Emperor of the Sea,” to ward off Japanese invaders. A beacon tower and the site of a ritual altar stand at the peak as symbols of the island’s ocean culture and its past glory as a base for seaborne trade.

A group of dolmens in Jin-ri indicates that the island has been inhabited by humans since before the Bronze Age.

Land Routes and Air Routes
On the way to Sa-ri Village, where Jeong Yak-jeon built Sachon School to teach the local children, there is an island that persistently blocks the view of the ocean. This is Jangdo, meaning “long island,” on the top of which is a mountain wetland complex with peat deposits, rarely found in islands and coastal areas. The wetlands provide clean drinking water for the islanders and a habitat for more than 500 species of life. The area was once planned to be used for stock farming, but the villagers bought up the land to assure its preservation. Recognized for its outstanding ecological value, it was placed on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance in 2005.
Toward the end of last year, the government announced that a mini airport with a 1.2-kilometer runway would be built on Heuksando, which led to a surge in land prices. If the airport is completed in 2020, as planned, it will take only an hour from Seoul to reach the island on a 50-seat jet. Then, honeymoon couples might be shouting with glee at the sight of the seas below, dotted with islands of the Heuksan archipelago.
Then again, “Illustrated Account of Goryeo” has this description of the island: “When a boat carrying Chinese envoys arrives, a fire is lit in the beacon tower on the top of the mountain and a series of other mountains respond, one by one, until the signal reaches the royal palace. The chain of signals begins right from this mountain.”
Which of these scenes do you prefer?