The Designation and Preservation Policy of Natural Monuments in Colonial Korea : The Transfer and Reconfiguration of the Japanese System

This article empirically examines how the designation system of Natural Monuments operated in colonial Korea between 1934 and 1943. Drawing on administrative records of the Government-General’s Academic Affairs Bureau and museums, deliberation materials and writings by members of the Preservation Committee, and official gazette notices, it analyzes the administrative scholarly structure of the system, the selection and distribution of designated objects, and the criteria language used in designation justifications and descriptions. The system took shape not only through the Ordinance itself but also through subordinate regulations and institutional arrangements; with the Committee’s Second Division at its core, the Academic Affairs Bureau led day-to-day administration within a structure in which bureaucrats and scholars worked alongside one another. Through eleven notices, 146 Natural Monuments and two Scenic Places and Natural Monuments were designated, revealing a pattern of concentrated implementation shaped by object types, the spatialization of units of preservation, and regional disparities. Finally, the criteria language—rarity, scientific value, local character, and scenic quality—did not converge into a single value system but articulated nature through the coexistence of scholarly classification standards formed in mainland Japan, an emphasis on the specificity of colonial sites, and a logic of limited preservation combined with use.