The spatial structure under the treaty regime and its dismantling (1876-1910): The boundary between the sea and the land

From a European perspective, all lands were either European territories or their potential colonies. In contrast, the sea remained a free space outside all territorial orders and was open to all countries. In the nineteenth century, Europe created new spaces in Asian countries by forcing them to conclude a treaty. In the case of Korea, the spatial structure under the treaty regime resembled concentric circles centered around a "foreign settlement," a "mixed residence zone within a distance of 10 Korean ri (approx. 4 km) from the foreign settlement" and then the "interior." This structure was a kind of spatial representation of the view towards the interior, which lay beyond the boundary of the foreign settlement, and a plan of spatial division for the land, the Korean Peninsula. The process of colonization of Korea was also a process of dismantling the structure. Until the annexation of Korea in 1910, the Korean Peninsula became a huge sea, and it was upon the sea that a new order of colonial Korea, named the exterior of the Japanese archipelago, began to develop.