본 연구는 경기도 고양시에 소재한 ‘행주산성’과 ‘행주서원’의 올바른 표기에 대해서 그 해답을 제시하려는데 목적이 있다. 왜냐하면 많은 사람들이 행주산성과 행주서원에서 ‘행주’를 동일한 한자로 착각하고 있으며 그로 인하여 많은 혼란이 있음을 묵과할 수 없기 때문이다. 이제 하나하나 살펴보기로 한다. ‘幸州서원’과 ‘杏洲서원’ 중 어느 것이 올바른 용어인가, 행주서원은 한자로 ‘杏洲書院’으로 표기해야한다는 것으로 결론지어졌다. 간략히 말하다면, ‘杏洲書院’이란 ‘살구꽃 피는 섬 마을에 있는 서원’이란 뜻이 된다. 그리고 그 ‘杏洲書院’은 ‘幸州’라고 하는 지역에 있다는 것도 확인하였다. 그러므로 따지고 보면 ‘행주 지역 안에 있는 살구꽃 피는 섬마을 서원’이란 말이 되겠다. 幸州산성은 幸州라는 고양시 관내에 있는 지역에 있는 산성이라 하겠다. 여기서 幸州는 단순한 행정지역의 명칭이므로 杏洲와 혼동되어 사용해서는 안된다.

This abstract of the Chinese character notations of Haengju Mountain Fortress and Haengju Confucian Academy (in Korean) started the research to straighten out the Chinese character notations of Haengju Confucian Academy and Haengju Mountain Fortress as they are confusing. The results can be summarized as follows. Which of ‘幸州Confucian Academy’ and ‘杏洲 Confucian Academy’ would be the correct term? I analyzed it one by one. As a result, it is concluded that Haengju Confucian Academy should be written as ‘杏洲書院’ in Chinese Characters. To be brief again, ‘杏洲書院’ means ‘The confucian academy in the apricot blooming island’. And I confirmed that ‘杏洲書院’ is located in the area called ‘幸州’. Therefore, as a matter of fact, it is the word that says ‘The confucian academy in the apricot blooming island in Haengju area’. And Haengju Mountain Fortress should be written as ‘幸州山城’. In here, ‘幸州’ is the name of the administrative district of this area. Even though the character of ‘幸’ has various meanings, if examined considering ‘州’ as well, it refers to the geographic region of administrative unit that contains the meaning of ‘幸’. Then why was there a confusion over whether ‘幸州書院’ or ‘杏洲書院’ is right? It can be answered easily. That It started from a mere misunderstanding. Because the letters are the same when ‘幸州’ and ‘杏洲’ are written in Korean. Therefore, the group of speakers brought that kind of misunderstanding since they simply cared about the pronunciation in Korean only and did not think about the meaning of the Chinese characters. If the confucian academy was name as ‘松柏書院’ not ‘杏洲書院’, there would have been no problems at all.