A Methodological Discussion on the Study of the Korean Capital

This work is a methodological discussion on the study of the Korean capital in viewpoint of political geography. Viewpoints, objects, and methods in study of the capital may vary according to philosophies and to number of the researchers. There are four viewpoints which may be use in studing Korean capital: historical, systems, functional, and spatial ones. Historical viewpoint emphasizes the capitals character of past-present-future continuum, systems viewpoint focuses on the capitals adaptation to external environments, functional view point deals the functions or activities of the capital, and spatial viewpoint deals the concreate space as a base of the city as a system. Significant objects of the study derived from the above viewpoints are as follows: Seoul's origin of capital and its developmental process, choice of Seoul as a Korean capital and its geographical reasons; relationships between both changes of Seoul's function structure and its space, development or change of capitals basic functions: head, keystone, link, and fron-tier-organizer functions, distribution and structure of national iconography in Seoul, anddifference in capital's head function between federal states and unitary ones; locational and space-size validities of Seoul as a capital, historical change of space-size of Seoul, and historical change of administrative districts in the city; and capital tranfers of historical kingdoms of Korea, gap of political strength among areas in Seoul, and core(capital)periphery of political significance in Korea