According to current textbooks, the theory of mountain ranges is based on geological features as well as geographical features. This theory has its roots from the technical paper by the Japanese geologist, Gotto Bunjiro. He visited Korea twice, once in 1900 and again in 1902, traveling the country for 14 months to research the geological and geographical features of Korea. With the results of his research, he published three technical papers in Japan: the geographical featrue of South Chosun, 1901 and the geographical feature of North Chosun, 1902 and finally in 1903 he combined his research from both visits and published "An Orographic Sketch of Korea", a kind of books of Tokyo College of Science. He researched the geological and geographical features of Korea based on the Western school of geology and geography at that time. Based on the geological and geographical features he identified 36 mountain ranges from three groups, namely, 'Toward Yodong', 'Toward China', 'Toward Korea'. Although these are quite different from the current "Map of Mountain Ranges", the current organization and identification of Korea's mountain ranges was initiated by his theory.

 In 1904, the Japanese geographer, Yasui Shyoei published an article in Tokyo entitled "The mountain system of Korea", which was included in the book, "The Korea Geography". In his article, he simplified Gotto Bunjiro's theory by reorganizing Korea's mountain ranges into 14 separate ranges. This new theory had a great influence on the organization and identification of Korea's mountain ranges.

 "Godeung-Sohack-Daehan-Jiji", published by Dae-Dong-Seo-Gwan in 1906, was the textbook that was used in Korea at the time. The preface quoted, "Our nation's mountain map is not accurate enough, so this book will reinstate the mountain range theory by using the works published by the professional Japanese geographer, Yasui Shyoei." thus the textbook editorial contained contents concerning mountain ranges that were similar to the contents of Yasui Shyoei's "The Korea Geography". Since then his work has become the main ideology of Korea's geographical school and has been modified little by little. The mountain range maps in today's current Korean textbook is most similar to "The map of Mountain ranges of Chosun" from the book "Silup-Silchan-Jiri" published in 1906 in Japan. (Refer to the 8th image and 9th image)