Did You Know a British Warship Sat Anchored at Geomundo for Two Years?

Geomundo is an island you can only reach after a long boat ride out from Yeosu — even Sudal has to swim a good long way to get there. These days it's a quiet island that draws fishermen and travelers with its clear water, lighthouse, and peaceful scenery. But did you know that over 130 years ago, this small island once flew the flag of the British Navy? Today, let me walk you through the story behind the name 'Geomundo,' and the 'Geomundo Incident,' when great powers from far-off Europe locked in a tense standoff over this tiny island. It's remarkable how much layered history can build up around a single name, or a single incident, isn't it?

An Island Under an Unfamiliar Flag

Back in 1885, a British naval fleet sailed into Geomundo, a small island of Joseon, and occupied it — an event now known as the 'Geomundo Incident.' Britain called the island 'Port Hamilton' and used it much like a naval base, a name still well-known enough today to have its own entry on English Wikipedia. Honestly, it still seems strange and startling — a foreign warship sailing into Joseon territory, a small island at the very southern tip of the Korean peninsula, no less, and staying put for years, with no war and no declaration. At the time, Joseon was in the middle of opening its ports and forging relations with various nations, and even so, it was a period when it was hard to speak up forcefully about what was happening on one's own soil.

Short as it may sound, or long depending on how you look at it, for roughly two years Geomundo sat right in the middle of a power struggle among great nations playing out far beyond Joseon's borders. The islanders themselves likely went on with life as usual — diving for shellfish, tending their fields, raising their children — and honestly, there's something that gets to Sudal about imagining unfamiliar warships, unfamiliar languages, and an unfamiliar flag passing over that daily life. The event survives today as just a few lines in history books, but packed into those few lines are the strange, uneasy days the islanders must have actually lived through.

A Small Joseon Island, Caught Between Britain and Russia

The reason Britain went to the trouble of sailing all the way to this small island in the far eastern seas and settling in, it turns out, had less to do with Joseon itself than with Russia. At the time, Britain and Russia were checking each other's influence all across the globe, and Britain, trying to block Russia's southward expansion, zeroed right in on Geomundo's location. Pretty unfair for Joseon, honestly — its own land ended up treated like a single stone on someone else's game board. The Joseon government protested, and eventually, after diplomatic negotiations among the powers involved, the British Navy withdrew from Geomundo in 1887. This incident still appears without fail in textbooks covering Korea's modern diplomatic history — a vivid glimpse of the early modern era, when Joseon struggled to determine its own fate.

From Samsando to Geomundo

The name Geomundo carries another story of its own. The island was originally known by other names, including Samsando, but as the story goes, around the time of the Geomundo Incident, a Qing admiral visiting Joseon — often said to be Jeong Yeo-chang — was so struck by the islanders' learning and literary skill that he suggested renaming the island to mean 'Island of Great Literary Accomplishment (文).' It's a tale still told today, and honestly, isn't there something genuinely moving about islanders writing well enough to impress even a commander from a great power? That said, the figure and the exact timing in this story vary somewhat depending on the source, so it's probably best understood not as settled historical fact but as a legend long passed down on the island. Still, knowing that a single name carries this much layered history — it makes Sudal look at Geomundo a little differently.

🦦 Real Photos, via Sudal