Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
진주시
Step inside the science museum of the Gyeongsangnam-do Science Education Institute in Jinju and you find a slab of 100-million-year-old shoreline laid bare in the middle of the exhibition floor. Builders digging into a hillside uncovered t…
Nature
창녕군
In Changnyeong, South Gyeongsang, Upo Wetland is the largest inland wetland in Korea, a landscape of water plants, willows and migrating birds that changes with every season. Protected as a Ramsar site and a natural reserve, it is best exp…
Nature
창원시
In Dongbu Village, Bukbu-ri, on the northern edge of Changwon, a single hackberry tree stands on a small hill above the fields. After it appeared as the "Sodeok-dong hackberry" in the 2022 drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo, people came from…
Nature
청송군
In Cheongsong, North Gyeongsang, a small reservoir lies hidden in a valley inside Juwangsan National Park. Ancient royal willows grow with their roots under the water at Jusanji, and when dawn mist rises the trees seem to float on the surf…
Nature
청주시
Just over 2 km north-west of Osong KTX Station, in the middle of a small park in the Osong biotech complex, stands a Chinese quince tree around 500 years old. With its gnarled, twisting trunk and mottled bark, it is one of the largest quin…
Nature
논산시
East of central Nonsan, the stream coming down from Daedunsan was dammed to create Tapjeong Reservoir (Tapjeongho), the second-largest reservoir in South Chungcheong. In winter tens of thousands of migratory birds such as whooper swans and…
Nature
태백시
Hwangji Pond is a spring in a small park right in the centre of Taebaek, between shops and roads. The water rising here is the starting point of the Nakdong River, which crosses the southeast of the country to reach the sea past Eulsukdo i…
Nature
태안군
Behind the Sinduri coastal dunes in Taean, ringed by pine woods, lies a small pond called Duung Wetland. It formed when wind-blown sand piled up into dunes, cut off the sea and trapped fresh water behind them. The open water is only about…
Nature
평창군
On the summit of Cheongoksan in Mitan-myeon, Pyeongchang, at 1,256 m above sea level, a broad plateau the size of six football pitches opens up. Around 20 huge wind turbines turn along the ridge, white Shasta daisies cover the slopes in ea…
Nature
영북면
Where the Hantangang River makes a sharp bend it has carved out a deep pool, and from the water rises a pale granite rock 13 m high. Because it looks like a stack of rice sheaves, locals called it Byeotgariso, "rice-stack pool", rendered i…
Nature
포천시
Sheer granite cliffs drop into an emerald pool at Pocheon Art Valley, which was once a stone quarry. For almost three decades, hard and handsomely patterned Pocheon granite was cut here; after the quarry was abandoned, the city turned it i…
Nature
포항시
In Buksong-ri, Heunghae-eup, on the northern edge of Pohang, a pine forest runs for almost 2.5 km along the embankment of the Gokgangcheon stream, known in the past as the Bukcheon. Bukcheonsu was planted on a flood dyke in the late Joseon…
Nature
하동군
Halfway up the hill behind Daechuk village in Akyang, Hadong, a pine tree sits astride a huge flat boulder. Its roots have split the rock and wrapped around it, as if the tree had no need for soil at all. This is Munamsong (文岩松), and from…
Nature
연천군
The Hantan River rises in Pyeonggang in North Korea and flows 136 km through Cheorwon, Pocheon and Yeoncheon before joining the Imjin River. As it cut down through a plateau of hardened lava, it carved canyons tens of metres deep lined wit…
Nature
함양군
In front of Mokhyeon village in Hamyang, beside a small stream, stands a pine that splits into several trunks right from the base and spreads out like a huge round umbrella. Because its limbs once divided nine ways, it is called Gusong (九松…
Nature
함양군
Hamyang Sangnim is a forest said to have been planted along a riverbank by the scholar Choe Chi-won, while he was governor of Hamyang in late Silla, to protect the town from floods. It is considered the oldest man-made forest in Korea and…
Nature
해남군
In the middle of the forecourt of Haenam County Office stands a black pine that rises on a single thick trunk and spreads its branches in every direction. Its name, Suseongsong (守城松), means "the pine that defended the fortress". Tradition…
Nature
화성시
South of Sihwa Lake, red rock islets rise out of an endless reed bed. These rocks yielded dinosaur egg fossils in large numbers, and today a wooden boardwalk lets you walk out and look at real fossil eggs. Until the Sihwa seawall was built…
Nature
화순군
Around Gaecheonsa, a small temple in Chunyang-myeon, Hwasun, an evergreen forest of Japanese torreya (bija, sometimes called nutmeg yew) covers the hillsides. Torreya grows only a little each year, yet here it has spread across the slopes…
Nature
제주시
Hwansang Gotjawal Forest in Jeoji-ri, western Jeju, is a forest whose paths were cleared by one family. In the winter of 2006, Lee Hyeong-cheol suffered a stroke that paralysed the right side of his body; as rehabilitation he began clearin…