The advance of Western powers to East Asia and the colonization policy of Japanese imperialism approached us in the name of ‘modernism’ and raised the issues of ‘nationalism’ and ‘the construction of people’s nation.’ Chosun intellects who responded to the challenges through ‘patriotic enlightenment movements’ greeted the 20th century in such a highly complicated situation. Religious circles were not exceptional. In particular, the Buddhist circle began its efforts to expand its influence and to adopt the modern system, starting from the launching of 『the Monthly Bulletin of Chosun Buddhism』 in 1912.The Buddhist magazine promoted the expansion of the influence of Buddhism by taking the systematization of Buddhist history, the vestiges of temples, and Buddhist saints’ biographies as the basic logics of modernization. In the process of arranging the vestiges of temples, Buddhist epitaphs were collected from all over the country and, as a result, geographical perception began to lay its base. As the locations and geographical relations of temples, pagodas and epitaphs were mentioned, the historical and national meanings of Buddhism were recalled. Geographical perception influenced also the process of organizing the history of Buddhism. It was attempted to enhance the religious status of Buddhism by broadening people’s interest in various areas throughout the world including Korea under the influence of Buddhism. Later, 『Haedong Buddhist News』 and 『Chosun Buddhist Reports』 began to spotlight the realities of those days through travel records reflecting young monks’ perspectives on the society. They witnessed the intensified colonization policy and the expanded influence of Christianity in the process that geographical perception of travel was being expanded. Such perception of realities, however, failed to be inherited actively in the colonized state. A representative example is magazine Mt. Geumgang launched in 1935. The magazine could not move forward from the perception of Mt. Geumgang rediscovered by Choi Nam‐seon and Lee Gwang‐soo from national pride and a modern viewpoint during the 1910s～1920s, and remained in explaining Buddhist doctrines or introducing interesting issues.This paper is an essay that traced the rise and fall of the geographical perception of Buddhist magazines by the waves of modernization and colonization. Based on deeper understanding of Korean Buddhism, we expect further studies to approach how the Buddhist circle perceived and coped with the days of modernization.