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Up until the 17th century, the gap between the Han’yang capital and the local cities, was not that big. But coming into the 18th century, the Joseon capital continued to grow, and expanded its gap with its fellow local cities. We can see that from the terms that referred to the capital city. The terms mostly remained the same with the ones that had been used before, the middle period of the Joseon dynasty, such as Gyeongdo(京都), Gyeongseong(京城), Doseong(都城), Gyeongsa(京師) and Wangdo(王都). But coming into the 18th century, new terms like ‘Gyeong’hwa(京華)’ or ‘Gyeong/Hyang(京鄕),’ which signaled a nuance distinguishing the capital from the other regions, began to be used heavily. Especially, the letter ‘Hwa(華)’ was clearly distinctive from the term ‘Ya(野),’ which meant areas other than the capital. And while terms such as ‘Gyeong/We(京外)’ or ‘Jung/We(中外)’ were used to refer to the Capital and other regions as a whole, in this period a new letter ‘Hyang’ replaced ‘We’ (as in ‘Gyeong/Hyang[京鄕]’). This new letter had a ‘country side’ nuance. Everything was piling up inside the capital. As a result, the capital and local cities diverged more than apparently in the 18th century. People from various classes such as middlemen and merchants continued to come to the capital, and the population inside the capital continued to grow. With commercial activities prospering and the so-called ‘middlemen literature’ forming, the capital city came to serve as not only a political and governance center, but also an economic and cultural center for the entire country. Before, people considered the place housing the Dynastic Shrine(宗廟) and Sa’jik(社稷) altars as the capital, but now they came to perceive the place with the most people and resources as the capital of the country. In order to defend the capital, Yusu-bu(留守府) posts were established in critical places around the Hanseong-bu(漢城府) capital, such as Su’weon(水原), Gwangju(廣州), Gaeseong(開城) and Gang’hwa(江華). With the concentration of resources on the capital, the monopoly of governmental seats by people living inside the capital continued. And with the resources coming from Qing China, foreign information also poured into the capital, and not the local areas. The Han’yang capital in the Joseon dynasty’s latter half period showed concentration in all areas: politics, economy, society and culture. Not only the Yangban literary figures but also the middle class figures and merchants flooded the capital city. In the meantime, the Seonbi figures and the general population were being excluded from the expanding capital, and the gap became even bigger in the 19th century.