From the late Goryeo dynasty onward, Korea's southern coast suffered repeated raids by Japanese pirates (wako). In 1397, the sixth year of King Taejo's reign in the newly founded Joseon dynasty, General Kim Bin-gil petitioned the crown to build fortifications at Nagan to strengthen the region's defenses. His request was granted, and an earthen wall went up first; starting in 1424, the wall was rebuilt in stone over several years, expanding it to roughly its current scale.
What makes Naganeupseong genuinely remarkable isn't simply that the old walls survived intact — it's that people still live inside them. Today, roughly 100 households occupy about 290 thatched-roof houses within the fortress walls — this isn't a folk village reconstructed for tourists, but a place where families have lived on the same ground their ancestors did for more than 600 years. There are hands-on programs here — traditional music and pansori performances, traditional weddings, blacksmithing, weaving — but what sets this place apart from other folk villages is that all of these activities happen against the backdrop of an actual, occupied town rather than a stage set. If you walk the fortress walls and see smoke rising from a chimney, that's not a performance — that's someone's dinner.