Seoul, South Korea
경복궁 · gyuhng-bok-goong
The first palace of Korea's last dynasty, built in 1395 under a mountain at the north end of Seoul. It has been burned, left in ruins for 270 years, rebuilt, and nine-tenths torn down. Most of what you see has been put back since 1990.
Photo: Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
You are standing in the main palace of the Joseon dynasty, which ruled Korea for 518 years. Its founder built it in 1395, three years after he took the throne. That was twenty-five years before the Forbidden City in Beijing was finished.
The name means "great blessings". It comes from a line in the Chinese Book of Songs, chosen by the minister who planned the new capital.
One ticket covers the whole palace. The two museums inside the walls are free and have their own doors.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Gwanghwamun and the guard ceremony | Outside the ticket gate; free to watch |
| Geunjeongjeon, the throne hall | Included; seen from the doors |
| Sajeongjeon and the royal quarters | Included |
| Gyeonghoeru, the pavilion on the pond | Included from outside; going up is by a separate booked tour in season |
| The chimney garden | Included |
| Hyangwonjeong | Included |
| Geoncheonggung | Included |
| National Palace Museum of Korea | Free; by the south-west corner |
| National Folk Museum of Korea | Free; on the east side |
The big hall on its two-tier stone platform is where the king was crowned, received his officials and met foreign envoys. The two rows of small stone posts in the yard told each official where to stand, by rank.
Look past the roof. The mountain behind is Bugak, and the whole palace is lined up on it.
In 1592 the palace burned during a Japanese invasion and was left as it lay. It was rebuilt in the 1860s. After Japan took Korea in 1910, most of the buildings were sold off or pulled down, and a huge government office was put up right in front of this hall. That office was demolished in 1995.
So the throne hall and the pavilion on the pond are from the 1860s, and much else is newer than it looks.
"It is a copy of the Forbidden City." It is older. Both follow the same ancient Chinese rules for a palace: halls of state in front, living quarters behind, everything on one north–south line. This one is smaller and sits in a landscape of hills.
"These buildings are six hundred years old." None is. The oldest date from the rebuilding of 1867.
"The Japanese burned it in 1592." Korean records of the time say it was set on fire by people of the city after the king fled. Historians still argue.
"Anything called hanbok gets you in free." The top and the bottom must both be worn properly. Staff at the gate decide.
The palace runs from south to north: gates, the halls of state, the king's and queen's quarters, then the gardens. These stops follow that line.
The main gate has three arches. The middle one was for the king. In 1927 the Japanese moved the whole gate round to the east side to clear the view of their new building. It was burned in the Korean War in 1950, rebuilt in concrete in 1968 a few metres off line, and rebuilt again in wood on the true line in 2010.
The two stone beasts in front are haetae. They can tell right from wrong and they eat fire.
The stone platform in front of the gate, where the king met his people, was dug out from under the road and restored in 2023. The name board was changed in the same year to black with gold letters, after old photographs showed that was how it had been.
The changing of the guard is acted out here at 10:00 and 14:00, except on Tuesdays.
Between the second gate and the third you cross a small stone bridge over a channel of water. A palace had to have water in front and a mountain behind. Crossing it was also meant to clean the mind of anyone coming before the king.
Look over the sides of the bridge. Four stone animals crouch on the banks and stare into the water, to stop evil coming up the stream.
This yard was empty from 1926 to 1996. The Japanese Government-General Building stood exactly here.
The name means "hall of diligent government". Look in through the open doors. Behind the throne is a screen painted with a sun, a moon and five peaks. The king sat between sun and moon, and the scene stood for the whole world in his care. The same picture is on the 10,000-won banknote.
Look up inside at the ceiling. Two golden dragons have seven claws each. A Chinese emperor's dragon had five. The hall was rebuilt in 1867, when the court wished to look very grand.
The paving of the yard is rough on purpose. Smooth stone would glare in the sun, and rough stone makes people in leather shoes walk slowly and carefully.
In September 2020 the band BTS performed in front of this hall for an American television show, and the film was seen round the world.
Behind the throne hall is a smaller hall where the king met his ministers every morning, read reports and heard lectures on the Confucian classics. The name means "hall of thoughtful government".
The low halls on each side have heated floors. The king used them in winter. The main hall has none.
This open hall stands on forty-eight stone pillars in a square pond. The outer pillars are square and the inner ones round, for the old Chinese idea that the earth is square and the sky round.
Kings gave banquets here, above all for the envoys who came from the Ming (1368–1644) court in China. The first pavilion was built in 1412. This one dates from 1867 and is the largest of its kind in Korea.
When the pond was drained and cleaned in 1997, workers found a bronze dragon in the mud. It had been put there in the 1860s to guard the building against fire.
The king's bedchamber and the queen's, behind it, have no ridge along the top of the roof. The usual explanation is that the king is himself a dragon, and no other dragon, as a roof ridge was called, should lie on top of him.
Both halls were taken down in 1917 and their timber was used to repair another palace after a fire. What stands here was rebuilt in 1995.
Behind the queen's hall is a small terraced garden. The four six-sided brick towers are chimneys. Smoke from the floor heating ran underground and came out here, far from the rooms. They are decorated with cranes, bats, plum and bamboo.
In 1873 King Gojong had a second pond dug at the north end and a six-sided pavilion built on its island. The name means "fragrance that carries far", from a Chinese essay in praise of the lotus.
The bridge was rebuilt on the wrong side after the Korean War. In 2021 it was moved back to the north, where the king used to cross from his own house.
Come in late October, when the trees round the water turn.
North of the pond is a group of plain buildings that look like a nobleman's house. The king and queen lived here from 1884. In 1887 the first electric lamps in Korea were lit here, with a generator bought from Edison's company and water from the pond.
Before dawn on 8 October 1895, a band of Japanese swordsmen and soldiers, organised by the Japanese minister in Seoul, forced their way in. They killed the queen in her rooms and burned her body in the grove behind.
Four months later the king fled to the Russian legation, hidden in a court lady's sedan chair. He never lived in this palace again.
After 1910 the colonial government held trade fairs in the grounds and sold the buildings for their timber. Of some five hundred, about forty were left. From 1916 to 1926 it built its headquarters of granite, with a dome, between the main gate and the throne hall. From the street, the palace could no longer be seen.
After 1945 the building housed the Korean parliament and then the national museum. Many people wanted to keep it as evidence. On 15 August 1995, fifty years to the day after liberation, the tip of the dome was cut off before a crowd. The rest was gone by the end of 1996.
Rebuilding began in 1990 and is planned to run to 2045. Even then, well under half of the old palace will be back.
Joseon and Ming were founded within a generation of each other, in 1392 and 1368. The Joseon kings took their calendar and their titles from the Ming emperor and sent envoys to Beijing several times a year.
When Japan invaded in 1592 and this palace burned, the Wanli Emperor sent armies to help. The war lasted seven years and drained the Ming treasury.
In 1895, the year the queen was killed, the Qing lost its war with Japan and gave up its old claim to stand over Korea. Fifteen years later Korea was a Japanese colony.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1395 | The palace is built | The Hongwu reign of the Ming; the Forbidden City is finished in 1420 |
| 1443 | King Sejong's alphabet | The Zhengtong reign of the Ming |
| 1592 | The palace burns in the Japanese invasion | The Wanli Emperor sends an army to Korea |
| 1867 | Rebuilt after 270 years | The Tongzhi reign; the Qing (1644–1912) is trying to modernise |
| 1887 | Electric light at Geoncheonggung | The Guangxu reign; Shanghai has had electric street lamps since 1882 |
| 1895 | The queen is murdered | The Qing loses the war with Japan and signs the Treaty of Shimonoseki |
| 1926 | The Government-General Building is finished | The Northern Expedition begins in China |
| 1995 | The demolition of that building begins | China and South Korea opened diplomatic relations three years earlier |
| 2010 | Gwanghwamun is rebuilt in wood on its old line | The Shanghai World Expo |
One line to remember: built in 1395, burned in 1592, rebuilt in 1867, pulled down after 1910, and coming back since 1990.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
The mountain south of Seoul is shaped like a flame, and its fire kept reaching the palace. The stone haetae were set at the gate because the haetae eats fire.
Source: Seoul tradition, told since the rebuilding of the 1860s
The Japanese gave their building the shape of the character for "sun", the first character of "Japan", and placed it to cut the line of good fortune that runs from the mountain to the palace.
Source: Widely believed in Korea; the plan does resemble the character, but no Japanese document states such a purpose
The king's bedchamber has no ridge because the king is a dragon, and a second dragon must not lie over him.
Source: The usual explanation given by palace guides; no building record states it
Two bronze dragons were sunk in the pond of Gyeonghoeru to keep fire away. One was found in 1997. The other has never been seen.
Source: A record of the 1860s rebuilding; the find of 1997
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. Seoul guides of 2026 and Korea's official tourism listing; the palace's own site refuses automated visits, so we could not open it.
Checked 2026-11-12
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