The Establishment of small states

Since people began to live in this land, they lived in groups. As these groups settled, villages started to be established. Such a village is called chuirak which began to appear from the Neolithic Age.

In the Bronze Age, chuirak was gradually transfigured by such factors as the development of agriculture (especially the beginning of rice agriculture), the occurrence of surplus products and the increase of population.

As a result, a large number of chwiraks were congregated or had a close relation to each other and came to form a political and economic unit which is called euplak. With the development of iron culture, a number of euplaks were united and established a larger polity which is called guk (state).

The first guk has several names. One of them is soguk which means a small state. Ancient state is a developed form of soguk and Daegaya also started from this soguk.

The record and name of the first soguk, in the south region of the Korean peninsula, appears in Samgukji (History of the Three Kingdoms), an ancient Chinese historical book. According to this book, among the Three Hans (Mahan, Jinhan, Byeonhan), Mahan consisted of 54 soguks, and Jinhan and Byeonhan 12 soguks, respectively.

There have been two views related to the name of the sokuk which existed in the Goryeong region. One regards the soguk as Mioyamaguk which is one of 12 soguks of Byeonhan, and the other as Balloguk. The former, which has existed since the Joseon period and has long been widely accepted, argues that another name of Gaya in the Japanese imperialism period was Yimna and this is translated as Mimana in Japanese.

On the other hand, the latter which has been recently raised maintains that the letter form of Banpa in Ilbonseogi (Chronicle of Japan) is similar to that of Goryeong. Recently, the latter rather than the former has acquired more wide support.