• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.620-637
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• 2008

$Che{\breve{o}}n$ (提堰) refers to the irrigation facilities used to provide water to the land on which rice is farmed. As the maintenance of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ required great amounts of capital, labor, and technology, the construction and maintenance of such facilities was controlled by the government. $Che{\breve{o}}n$ was perceived as being of particular importance during the $Che{\breve{o}}n$ era, which adopted agriculture as the basis of state management. Therefore, the management of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ was considered to be one of the main state policies. This is why $Che{\breve{o}}n$-related records can often be found in the historical documents written during the $Che{\breve{o}}n$ era. As such historical documents in the form of Jiriji (地理誌, geographical descriptions) include detailed descriptions of the number, size, and location of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ in individual counties($kunby{\breve{o}}n$), these help to conduct comprehensive analysis of the state of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ during the $Che{\breve{o}}n$ era. Based on these facts, this study attempts to establish a database of the $Che{\breve{o}}n$-related contents included in the <$Y{\breve{o}}jitos{\breve{o}}$(與地圖書)> published during the latter period of $Che{\breve{o}}n$, and using the established database, to identify the regional characteristics of $Che{\breve{o}}n$. More precisely, by analyzing the state of the distribution of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ at the national level, an effort was made to review the regional characteristics of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ in terms of their distribution and of the natural geographical conditions found in the locales where $Che{\breve{o}}n$ were located, as well as of the interrelation between such $Che{\breve{o}}n$ and socioeconomic factors such as the scale of the population and the size of the area under cultivation. Other factors which were delved into included matters related to the size of $Che{\breve{o}}n$ such as their perimeter, length, and scale of the area which they irrigated, the characteristics of the locales where $Che{\breve{o}}n$ were located, and the regional differences in the characteristics of $Che{\breve{o}}n$.