This lecture explores the politics and ideas of social and political integration in late Chosŏn Korea through a case study of the local history and culture of the northwestern part of the Korean peninsula—P'yŏngan Province. The primary subject of inquiry is the various ways in which members of the local elite constructed, negotiated, and embodied their regional identity and culture. I explore in particular how local elites in P'yŏngan Province strived to establish elite networks through marriage ties and scholarly communities and to form patriarchal lineage associations. I argue that these cultural activities are designed to claim that they shared a common cultural ancestry with the central elites. I privilege northerners' elite identity no matter how the elites of other places, especially power-holding elites in the capital, tried to discredit northerners' elite status, and thus propose to rethink late Chosŏn society.