Gyeryongsan

The name comes from the ridge, which suggested both a rooster’s comb and a dragon’s back. The founder of the Joseon dynasty considered making it his capital before choosing Seoul. The mountain long concentrated hermitages, shamans and new religions, to the point that the state expelled about a hundred of them in the 1980s. Donghaksa temple remains, one of the few Korean monasteries led by nuns, along with Gapsa, founded in the fourth century. Designated a national park in 1968, the country’s second.