Nari Basin is a basin in

Ulleungdo Ulleungdo (), also spelled Ulreungdo, is a South Korean island east of the Korean Peninsula in the Sea of Japan. It was formerly known as Dagelet Island or Argonaut Island in Europe. Volcanic in origin, the rocky steep-sided island is the top o ...

, South Korea, and is just under

Seonginbong Seonginbong () is a mountain located on the South Korean island of Ulleungdo, in North Gyeongsang Province, off the eastern coast of the mainland Korean Peninsula. It is the tallest mountain on the island and has an elevation of 984 metres. See ...

. The Nari basin is made by Seonginbong’s past volcanic activity and is a

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

. Thousands of years ago, there was a huge volcanic activity in Seonginbong and after that, the underneath part subsided and the Nari basin was formed. The Seonginbong is now an

inactive volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fou ...

and these days, people live in the basin and grow crops.

The origin of the name

People lived in the basin since the

Usan 280px, "Samguk Sagi" Book 04. Silla's Records. In 512, Usan-guk（于山國）was Ulleungdo（鬱陵島） Usan-guk, or the State of Usan, occupied Ulleung-do and the adjacent islands during the Korean Three Kingdoms period. According to t ...

-guk era. But in the

Joseon Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...

dynasty, King

Taejong Taejong (; 16 May 1367 – 10 May 1422), personal name Yi Pangwŏn (), was the third monarch of the Joseon dynasty of Korea and the father of Sejong the Great. He was the fifth son of King Taejo, the founder of the dynasty. Before ascending t ...

announced a policy to the people who had lived there to empty the Ulleungdo. About 450 years later, when King Gojong held sway over Joseon, the island was cultivated again. The name ‘Nari’ was called as it is because the people who lived in the basin a long time ago prolonged their lives by digging up the roots of the plant ‘seommalnari (Ulleungdo turk’s-cap lily, Lilium hansonii)’. As people have named the basin in Chinese characters : by recognizing the basin as ‘a beautiful village like silk’, but the ‘nari’s are still growing a lot in the basin area. Around 500 people (93 houses) lived in the Nari-dong(village) when it was cultivated again in the late 1800s.

General information

The basin has a cover area of 1.5-2.0 square kilometers, about 1.5 km from east to west, and about 2.0 km from south to north. Nari basin is a crater basin formed by the collapse of the northern part of Seonginbong(984m)'s caldera, within the eruption of Albong(611m) and the lava from Albong separated into two crater basins. The northeastern part is called the Nari village and the southwestern part is called Albong village where no people live in. The Basin is surrounded by

somma Somma may refer to: Places *Somma Lombardo, an Italian municipality in the Province of Varese *Somma Vesuviana, an Italian municipality in the Province of Naples *Sommacampagna, an Italian municipality in the Province of Verona *Massa di Somma, a ...

, and the Seonginbong is the highest peak of the somma and also the highest peak of Ulleungdo. The Tumakjip houses in Nari are built with Ulleungdo hemlock (Tsuga diversifolia) and Engler’s beech (Fagus engleriana), shaping them in a hash sign with soil attached in between. The Gyeongbuk province designated 4 Tumakjip houses in Nari to be protected as cultural assets.

Tourist attractions

Famous tourists attractions in Nari basin : shingle-roofed houses, Tumakjip houses, Sillyeongsu saengtae-gil(road), Albong, Ulleungdo thyme (Thymus quinquecostatus) Habitat, Yongchulso, Sinryeongsu, Natural monument in Nari basin : Ulleung dendranthema (Dendranthema zawadskii)

References

External links

* {{coord missing, South Korea Calderas of Asia Ulleung County Landforms of North Gyeongsang Province