Yangban

The yangban were the ruling class of Joseon Korea, educated aristocrats and scholar-officials named for the "two branches" of office, civil (munban) and military (muban). Office came by law through the state examinations (gwageo), but only yangban families could afford the years of study they required. Locally the status was hereditary in all but law: lineages were listed in registers (hyangan) whose householders sat on a local council, and in the 17th and 18th centuries a few grandee families based in Seoul or the Han River valley monopolised high office. The legal status was abolished in 1894.