City Life
The bulk of each kingdom's artisans, nobility, specialists, and merchants inhabited the cities where they served the needs of the state and the aristocracy. While conflict was frequent, ideas and goods flowed in and out of the cities of the three kingdoms. Visitors to these cities included foreign merchants, dignitaries, Buddhist monks, and scholars from China and Japan. The vast majority of city structures were single-story buildings of wooden construction, thus the unfortunate lack of actual genuine architectural specimens that predate the Goryeo and Joseon periods.
The liveliest and most dynamic of these cities were the capitals, where most of the aristocracy had their residence. The artisans who inhabited the cities created goods for the upper class and members of the court while merchants brought in goods from the periphery of the kingdom or from other lands. The highest of the upper class all resided in the capital or at least within close proximity to it because of the difficulties of transportation in those days. As a result, the capital was always the center of culture and thus regarded as the heart of civilization. Exile from the capital was a fearsome penalty among the elites.
Similar to cities of the neighboring Chinese empire, cities of the Korean kingdoms were heavily fortified. As military competition was fierce, cities had their own castles, denoted by the Korean word "seong" in the title. The city names of "Hanseong" and "Geumseong" both refer to "Han Castle" and "Geum Castle" respectively. These castles were mostly made of wood and earth; stone castles were not utilized until later on. Korean castles, while certainly not unimpressive fortresses, differ from European and Japanese castles in that they typically do not have a central "keep" and instead have much more concentrated fortifications by gates and guard towers.
Some of the major Samguk-era cities that still exist and remain prominent today are Seoul, Pyeongyang, and Gyeongju. Seoul was the site of the ancient city of Hanseong, a major city to the Baekje kingdom and later to the Goguryeo kingdom. Pyeongyang, the present-day capital of North Korea, was a major Goguryeo city. Gyeongju, while a relatively minor city today in present day South Korea, served as the capital of Shilla all throughout the Samguk period and the Unified Shilla period; it became the provincial capital of the old Gyeongsang Province in the Joseon Dynasty era and presently remains as the administrative center of Gyeongsangbuk-do.
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