Asadal

Asadal, () was the capital city of the kingdom of Old Chosŏn (), the first Korean kingdom and notably founded by the legendary king Tan'gun. It is thought that Asadal was located in north-central Korea, in the western Hwanghae Province in modern North Korea or in the Pyongyang Province (, with no relation to the modern-day capital of North Korea).

== Etymology == The etymology of "Asadal" is uncertain. One hypothesis is that the word is a compound composed of two elements, asa + dal; this hypothesis is primarily motivated by an assumption of equivalence between the Chinese phonetic transcription Asīdá and the word Joseon (, Cháoxiǎn or Cháoxiān, in Chinese), another name for Korea. However, the etymology of Joseon is ultimately unknown, with opinions differing as to whether the word was created as a phonetic transcription or as a semantic calque (presumably of a foreign word). Furthermore, the reading of the Mandarin Chinese character (cháo) in Cháoxian (Joseon) is identical to the reading when used to mean "dynasty," not with the reading when used to mean "morning" (which would instead be zhāo).