Talk:Joseon

population

This wiki article's record of Joseon's population is incorrect.

The official position of Korean academia on the population of Joseon in the 15th to 19th centuries is as follows.

http://contents.nahf.or.kr/item/level.do?levelId=edeah.d_0004_0030_0020_0030#self

I think the population related part should be restored to the old content edited before 16:16, 7 May 2023‎. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sega23days (talk • contribs)

Requested move 5 October 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 08:01, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

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Joseon → ChosŏnChosŏn – I'm proposing this mainly to poll opinions in the manner of an WP:RFC, as well as to try and illustrate how our new MOS works. If you're a regular on any Korea topics, I encourage you to think about what I'm discussing here because similar principles will apply to many other moves that may happen in the near future.

Context:

1. "Chosŏn" is the McCune–Reischauer ("MR") romanization of 조선. "Joseon" is using Revised Romanization ("RR").
2. We recently rewrote MOS:KO and WP:NCKO. As part of this, MR is now recommended for all pre-1945 topics. Before the rewrite, RR was recommended for pre-1945 topics (except, confusingly, for people names lol...).

Thoughts:

1. Relevant policies: WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DIVIDEDUSE, and WP:CRYSTALBALL. These policies are also the foundation for MOS:KO and WP:NCKO.
2. Coverage in RS:
   • MR and "Chosŏn" are used by almost all Korean history academic journals ().
   • In my experience, practice in books is more divided. Well-respected and widely used history books almost universally use MR and "Chosŏn". All other books (including less reliable pop culture books about Korea) seem to use RR and "Joseon". This divided use can be somewhat seen in the close race on Ngrams, which measures mentions in books. However, if we prioritize the most reliable sources, this still leans towards MR.
   • News and pop culture tend to use "Joseon", like Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist.
   • Together, this suggests that academia uses "Chosŏn", but average people may use "Joseon".
3. Since this article was created 21 years ago in 2003, it has never gone by "Chosŏn". Moving it to that has seemingly never even been requested. I think this clearly suggests that Wikipedia editors have a preference for this spelling.
   • Wikipedia's use of the spelling also possibly influenced global use of the spelling as well.
   • Oh, and it's also annoying to type the diacritic letter (ŏ); it's frustratingly not easily available on Mac, PC, or iPhones.

In short, there's basically three relevant groups here: academic historians (prefer MR), average people around the world (RR), and Wikipedia editors (RR). I think this move should be decided by how much you want to cater towards each of these groups.

I want to hear other arguments or want others to weigh in. I'm actually leaning towards "Joseon" being more appropriate. I think Wikipedia is meant to be used by the average person, and clearly both average people and Wikipedia editors prefer that spelling. But I'm leaving open the possibility for "Chosŏn" to happen. seefooddiet (talk) 05:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject East Asia, WikiProject Former countries, WikiProject Council, and WikiProject Korea have been notified of this discussion. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 ^{[𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺]} 08:43, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Per WP:COMMONNAME. I'd also recommend a speedy close as the nominator themselves admitted they do not actually want to move the article. What they are looking for is a... y'know... WP:RFC, not a move discussion. (or better yet, just a simple talk page comment because RFCs are used in the case of intractable issues). ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:34, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

  Oppose speedy close. I'm leaving open the possibility of the move actually happening because I'm not sure of what the best thing to do is. Citing common name alone tells me you didn't really understand this post. seefooddiet (talk) 18:12, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

  I understand the distinction you're making (it's the same name morphemically, but rendered differently) I don't think that's quite fair. In general, there's almost never a meaningful distinction to make between the two in these discussions. MOS:ROMANIZATION specifically says If a particular romanization of the subject's name is most common in English, that form should be used. Otherwise, the romanization of names should adhere to a particular widely used system for the language in question. If I may, the changes to MOS:KO seems analogous to MOS:ZH in terms of this: we use Hanyu Pinyin by default, except when there's a clear COMMONNAME exception (e.g. Sun Tzu) Remsense ‥ 论 01:18, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  An RM seems to be appropriate here, and the evidence contradicts the status quo being common name. As someone not familiar with Korean history, I've never seen the Choson spelling, but that's not reason to oppose. I'm leaning towards support due to WP:Common name based on the evidence provided, although prevalence in Korean language sources is irrelevant for common name due to WP:Use English (note that per WP:UE, Korean words used predominantly in English language sources become English). On Google Scholar, Joseon gives 54,500 hits, Chosŏn 22,600. While WP:CRITERIA are acceded by common name, you could argue Joseon is more recognisable. All this makes me lean towards weak support because I love ngrams Kowal2701 (talk) 18:49, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME - Though Chosŏn has a slight advantage in books/academia, "Joseon" is by far the most common romanization in English language general usage, news articles, popular culture, etc. I'd argue that moving the article to "Chosŏn" would violate the principle of least astonishment; the majority of "regular people" would be searching for the article on "Joseon" and would be surprised when we redirect them somewhere else, to a different word with ~fancy~ diacritic marks that isn't what they expected to see. RachelTensions (talk) 01:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Chosŏn doesn't have a slight advantage in academia; if you read my OP my analysis has it that it's the overwhelming practice. Less rigorous books, usually pop culture or about modern South Korea, use "Joseon". So this is more a split between academia and the general public. seefooddiet (talk) 01:30, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  So it's academia versus everyone else. We're writing an encyclopedia for "everyone else", not academics. RachelTensions (talk) 01:31, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Mind the tone btw; it reads a bit sarcastic and aggressive when really I mostly agree with your point.

  One reason I made this post is to illustrate that these situations are not straightforward and there isn't a simple solution for everything. I've spent the last three months thinking about these topics every day, and have seen discussions from the past 20 years where people rushed into these debates with hard-set opinions and assumptions that end up conflicting with the hard-set opinions of others. It's not simple.

  "Joseon" is lucky because it does appear in pop culture a lot. But for many Korean history articles, the topics basically never show up in pop culture and only in history books that would use MR. Should we use RR or MR or those? Not simple and deserves thought. seefooddiet (talk) 01:42, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose for now – I appreciate this being posted for the reasons given in the OP, and it does beg one to reflect on what sources we consider when evaluating WP:NC—there are many cases where we simply do not use the most common name (e.g. Influenza or applications of WP:NPOVNAME) and I think sometimes editors lose sight of the four naming criteria other than recognizability. As it stands though, I think it's correct to sample the broadest base when naming historical polities. It's possible the systematic rendering will be most suited in the future, but not yet.

Remsense ‥ 论 01:28, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia's use of the spelling also possibly influenced global use of the spelling as well.

I agree with this. I suspect that the reason "Joseon" is common among average people is that they simply copied whatever is used on Wikipedia. Average people usually check Wikipedia to get some simple/basic knowledge about the topic.

So in this case, I believe we should be careful about including what average people use.

(As a side note, I get the impression that there was a tendency to favor RR among editors in the early years of Wikipedia.) 172.56.232.193 (talk) 02:30, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I somewhat agree, although I'd argue people are really likely to encounter "Joseon" through Korean dramas nowadays, even moreso than through Wikipedia.

Some additional context to this; RR was brand new around the time Wikipedia was first created. If WP:COMMONNAME existed at the time (I remember reading that it didn't), I don't think there could have been a convincing case for RR; it would have almost certainly been MR. But now we're here. seefooddiet (talk) 02:34, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Our own influence, while theoretically a potentially valid dimension to consider, is not really one we're able to measure or consider. Remsense ‥ 论 02:36, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per COMMONNAME.--Ortizesp (talk) 01:32, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per COMMONNAME. I'm a little suspicious that even academic sources favor Chosŏn - maybe those that are strictly using the Korean word, but this is pretty well-known in English. SnowFire (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  I provided sources for my claims. The only one that's harder to provide sources on is for books, but even then it's really not that hard to look up the major Korean history books to see what the romanization systems in use are. seefooddiet (talk) 04:27, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Clear common name in English-language sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Evidence? Kowal2701 (talk) 12:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Evidence that it isn't? -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:04, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah Kowal2701 (talk) 15:21, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Changing Flag of Joseon

The flag that is in use for Joseon is currently File:Flag of Korea (1893).svg. The source that is listed on the Wikimedia Common's page has a couple of problems:

1. The actual flag is not found on that website. I went through previous versions of the website on the Wayback machine, but there were 10+ years of history and I was unable to find the original file.

2. The file/source is not an academic source. The flag seems to be from a flag-posting blog. I do not believe it meets WP:RS requirements.

There are multiple competing versions of the Taegeukgi floating around on Wikipedia Commons, so I consulted the Korean National Archives:

The version currently in use for Joseon is not represented. The closest resemblance would be the Owen N. Denny Taegeukgi (found on link 2 above), but the Taegeuk spiral is in the opposite direction. Without proper sourcing for the flag, it should be changed to a different variant. The Flags of Maritime Nations version, located at File:Flag of Korea (1882–1910).svg and found on both Korean Archive sources above seems like the most definitive source that we can find that are also referenced by WP:RS sources and produced "officially". MetropolitanIC (💬|📝) 05:40, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for explaining. I support any well-sourced, representative specimen. Remsense ‥ 论 05:41, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

multiple names

@Sunnyediting99 and anyone else: given there is a preference for multiple forms and multiple names in these infoboxes, could we consider arranging different forms as horizontal lists, saving as much vertical space as possible?

Joseon 조선 고려국 高麗國  (1392–1393) 조선국 朝鮮國  (1393–1894) 대조선국 大朝鮮國  (1894–1897)

Remsense ‥ 论 00:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm open to this, what are other peoples thoughts? Sunnyediting99 (talk) 14:44, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I like it; it's much more compact and gets the point across. MetropolitanIC (💬|📝) 02:21, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Why not just delete the first and third names and create a section exclusively on names? 고려국 and 대조선국 seem a bit peripheral to be on an infobox considering they were used for less then five years. Moreover, I think there times when multiple names were used simultaneously by the Joseon state. Might have to research more on this one. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 22:08, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I would strongly prefer this, but others tend to have a higher desire for name forms in infoboxes than I. Remsense ‥ 论 22:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Who do you mean by others? I know there was quite a debate going on in the Silla talk page regarding similar issues, but that one wasn't about whether multiple "|native_names" should be labeled on the infobox.

(Also, just fyi, but "조선국" may not be the correct rendering of "medieval" Hangul. According to this primary source on korean wikisource it may have been "됴선국") -- 00101984hjw (talk) 22:20, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I think im open to potentially eliminating it and just having a section for names, it's just that the country technically had multiple phases of having multiple names which i think is a bit unique compared to some other states that usually at max have like one name change. Sunnyediting99 (talk) 22:59, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Which would be much better if well-addressed in a section of its own rather than labeled all on the infobox with little elaboration, right? Which is why I believe it would be best if we only reserved the single most commonly used name on the infobox? -- 00101984hjw (talk) 22:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: History of Modern East Asia

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2026 and 30 April 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Hamelo03 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Fadiyat, Rileymccomb.

— Assignment last updated by Fadiyat (talk) 22:48, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Joseon Cybernation?

Im pinging @TansoShoshen who added it to Joseon and Korean Empire but im a bit skeptical of adding the Joseon Cybernation in the "See Also" section for both. Now I did read through a bit of the various talk pages (such as Talk: List of Korean flags and other pages) where there were debates on whether it should be included or not. Im not against the page for Joseon Cybernation existing but I really dont find a strong and convincing case for its inclusion in the "See Also" section for both Joseon/Korean Empire given that its relatively not notable + its more of an offshoot state formed by pretenders in America rather than say a legitimate successor state. I wouldnt be against it for say in the House of Yi or the pages for Yi Seok and Andrew Lee but I think for actual real-life states it goes too far. Sunnyediting99 (talk) 23:56, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

@Sunnyediting99 Upon some dwelling, I think that I agree with this statement for Joseon (kingdom), but not necessarily with the Korean Empire. The Korean Empire shares more in common, as the claim of elevation from kingdom to empire is self-proclaimed. Of course, JC is not as notable historically as the other 2, so I'm willing to compromise. TansoShoshen (talk) 17:55, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Hmmm, I do think for both it wouldn't be relevant (for House of Yi/the Yi Clan I do think it is relevant). For now ill remove it from just Joseon since we have agreement there.

I think the thing is the Korean Empire's proclamation was yes self-proclaimed but it was also the entrance of Korea into the European style Westphalian concepts of sovereignty. Obviously Joseon (and most tributaries of China and of other countries historically at least in the Eastern World) were de facto/dejure sovereign but the Korean Empire was arguably when Korea fully entered the Western centric view of what defines sovereignty/independence (Henry Em's works discuss this). I say this because while the Joseon Cybernation is also self-proclaimed, it is moreso just in the sense as a pretender-successor state with very limited recognition. The Joseon Cybernation's self-proclaimed status is also on whether it exists or not, whereas Joseon had been recognized as a state historically by both its neighbors (China, Japan, Ryukyus, etc) and by Western nations like the US, etc. Versus Joseon transitioning from an independent tributary under the Qing Empire's orbit (which was true for Vietnam, Thailand, etc) into a full-blown modern sovereign state that we recognize today under the Western influenced conception of what independent countries are.

Curious what other editors have to say. Sunnyediting99 (talk) 01:49, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Any other topic editors want to chime in? Again, I feel like this is a relatively obscure/not as relevant thing to put in the See Also section. Sunnyediting99 (talk) 23:32, 13 April 2026 (UTC)