Maeheon Citizen's Forest

Right beside the Yangjae interchange on the Gyeongbu Expressway, at the southern gateway to Seoul, a dense forest fills the ground between the roads. Created ahead of the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Maeheon Citizen's Forest is often described as Korea's first park designed around a "forest" rather than open lawns. In 2022 it was renamed after Maeheon, the pen name of independence activist Yun Bong-gil, and a memorial hall in the park tells his short life story.

A forest at the city gate

The land was prepared in 1983 as part of the Gaepo district land readjustment, and after about three years of work the park opened on 30 November 1986. It covers some 359,000 m². Pines, metasequoias, zelkovas and ginkgos form the backbone of the woodland, and there are plenty of persimmon and Chinese quince trees, which hang heavy with fruit in autumn.

It was originally called Yangjae Citizen's Forest. In 2022 it took the name Maeheon Citizen's Forest to highlight the Yun Bong-gil Memorial Hall inside, and the nearby station on the Shinbundang Line was renamed too. In October 2026, the park's 40th anniversary, it hosted the Seoul International Garden Expo, with gardens by designers and local residents set up throughout the forest.

Two zones either side of Maeheon-ro

Maeheon-ro road divides the park into a northern and a southern section.

• North: the walking zone, with the Yun Bong-gil Memorial Hall and statue, a barefoot path, a playground, an outdoor wedding venue and Jisikseojae, a small book café in the woods. It also connects to the riverside path along the Yeouicheon stream.
• South: a cluster of memorials: a monument to the Baengma guerrilla unit of the Korean War, a memorial to the 115 victims of Korean Air Flight 858, blown up over Myanmar in 1987, a memorial to the 502 people killed when the Sampoong Department Store collapsed in 1995, and a memorial to the victims of the 2011 Umyeonsan landslide.

Yun Bong-gil Memorial Hall

The hall honours Yun Bong-gil, who threw a bomb at senior Japanese military and colonial officials in Hongkou Park, Shanghai, on 29 April 1932. It was built with public donations and opened on 1 December 1988, passed into state ownership in 2016 and reopened in March 2025 with new digital displays. Exhibits include the pocket watch he exchanged with independence leader Kim Gu just before the attack, replicas of the water-bottle and lunch-box bombs, and the farming textbook he wrote for the night school he ran in his home county of Yesan. A statue of Yun standing before the Korean flag greets visitors at the entrance.

• Hours: March–October 10:00–18:00, November–February 10:00–17:00
• Closed: Mondays, 1 January, the Seollal and Chuseok holidays and Workers' Day (1 May)
• Admission: free

Tripto tips

• Getting there: about a 5-minute walk from Exit 5 of Maeheon Citizen's Forest Station on the Shinbundang Line. The address is 99 Maeheon-ro, Seocho-gu.
• Opening: the park is open 24 hours a day, all year, and free.
• Time needed: about 1 hour for a walk in the woods, 1.5–2 hours with the memorial hall and the southern memorials.
• Best seasons: April around cherry-blossom time, and November when the metasequoias and ginkgos turn.
• For hikers: the park sits halfway along the Daemosan–Umyeonsan section of the Seoul Trail. The park office doubles as a Seoul Trail information centre, where you can collect the stamp for your trail passport.