Person
Gim Man-deok
Gim Man-deok was a Korean merchant of Joseon from Jeju Island who used her fortune to feed the island in a famine. Orphaned young, she became a gisaeng; at 22 she had her name removed from the gisaeng registry, regained her yangmin status and opened an inn for merchants and a commission agency for trade between Jeju and the mainland, becoming by 50 one of the two richest people in Joseon. When famine struck Jeju from 1792 and 170,000 people died of starvation, she imported and distributed rice, saving 18,000 lives. King Jeongjo granted her wish to visit the capital and Mount Geumgang, though Jeju women had been forbidden to leave the island for 200 years; she left her belongings to the poor.
See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Gim Man-deok. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/gim-man-deok
- MLA
- “Gim Man-deok.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/gim-man-deok. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Gim Man-deok.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/gim-man-deok.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Gim Man-deok’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/gim-man-deok (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻