Gangwon Gam-young was where governors of Gangwon-do province resided and took care of public services with public officers working for governors during the Chosun Dynasty(1392 – 1910).

Gam-young was a complex of provincial government offices and buildings in the Chosun Dynasty period and it was established each in eight different provinces that were the provincial capital.

Wonju was the capital of Gangwon-do province for the past five hundred years, the center of culture, literature, trade, transportation, etc in Gangwon-do region thanks largely to the geographical proximity to Seoul(which used to be officially called ‘Han-yang’ during the Chosun Dynasty.)

The Chosun Dynasty integrated two local provinces( Gangreung-do province and Gyoju-do province) into one province in 1395, which become Gangwon-do province. Shortly after that, Wonju was designated by the King as the capital city of Gangwon-do province and Gangwon Gam-young was established.

All of the facilities at Gangwon Gam-young were destroyed during the Japanese Invasion(1592-1598). However, Wonju County governor, Lee Bae-won, started reconstructing Gangwon Gam-young facilities in 1634. Wonju county governors and Gangwon-do province governors continued reconstructing the facilities until they were fully rebuilt.

Gangwon Gam-young once showed off its magnificient wooden facilities with a total of forty wooden structures including the main building where the governor worked with public servants, facility of printing, facility of books, building of family registration papers of Wonju residents, residential facility for the governor and the family, and other wooden building structures of a variety of specific functions for five hundred years from 1395 to 1895, serving as a central place for the renewal and creation of Gangwon-do province’s history.

Many Gam-young building facilities started being used as a headquarters of Wonju Local Army after 1896. After the Wonju Local Army was disbanded by the order of the central government in 1907, the facilities were used as Wonju County Hall Office buildings. Since 1895, most of the facilities at Gam-young were gone, only left with several buildings including the main building for the governor’s public service.

Gangwon-do provincial government and Wonju City Hall authority, having agreed to reconstruct Gangwon Gam-young that used to have historic, cultural, political significance as the only Gangwon-do’s capital for the past five hundred years, began to proceed with a rebuilding project in 2000. Until 2005, six facilities were reconstructed based on the historical research and evidence.

Gangwon Gam-young is where tourists and citizens alike are encouraged to visit as a attractive tourist site of historic magnitude. It clearly shows that Wonju was the iconic, central place of culture, arts, printing, politics, etc that represented Gangwon-do province.