The reservoir at the heart of Eunpa Lake Park — known as "Mije Reservoir" — is believed to predate the Joseon dynasty as a man-made body of water. It's old enough to appear on Kim Jeong-ho's Daedongyeojido, Korea's celebrated 19th-century national map, which gives some sense of just how long this reservoir has existed. And yet the name we actually use for it today, "Eunpa," is far more recent — it dates only to 1975, when a developer building a resort on the site named it after his own father's pen name.
The fact that a centuries-old reservoir carries a name barely 50 years old is a small but telling reminder of how many layers of time can stack up inside a single place name. Today, Eunpa Lake Park is best known for its 370-meter dragon-shaped illuminated footbridge, which lights up at night and reflects across the water — one of Gunsan's most popular photo spots after dark. Before you take that glowing nighttime photo, it's worth remembering that the water underneath predates the Joseon dynasty itself; the view gets a little deeper once you know that.