Yangban

The yangban were part of the traditional ruling class or nobles of dynastic Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. The yangban were either landed or unlanded aristocracy who comprised the Korean Confucian idea of a "scholarly official." Basically, they were administrators and bureaucrats who oversaw ancient Korea's traditional agrarian bureaucracy until the ancien regime of Joseon Dynasty ended in 1894. In a broader sense, office holder's family and descendents as well as country families who claimed such descendence were also socially accepted as yangban.