Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
영천시
East of Palgongsan, a wooded road in Cheongtong-myeon, Yeongcheon, leads past the sound of a clear stream to a large temple. Eunhaesa is, together with Donghwasa, the best-known temple on Palgongsan, and as the head temple of the 10th dist…
Churches & monasteries
포항시
On the eastern slopes of Unjesan in Pohang, Oeosa sits right at the water's edge of a mountain reservoir. Tradition dates its founding to the reign of King Jinpyeong of Silla, and its name, meaning "my fish temple", comes from a story in t…
Churches & monasteries
울진군
Deep in a valley of Cheonchuksan in Uljin, at the end of a path through Korean red pines, lies a temple built around a pond. On the ridge west of the temple is a rock shaped like a seated Buddha, and its shadow is said to fall on the pond…
Churches & monasteries
원주시
Follow the forest path of tall red pines up the northern valley of Chiaksan and Guryongsa appears on the slope beside the stream. Two legends overlap in its name: a pond full of dragons and a turtle-shaped rock said to have sapped the temp…
Churches & monasteries
의왕시
Cheonggyesa is a Jogye Order temple set in the woods on the southern slopes of Cheonggyesan in Uiwang. One family looked after it for nearly 500 years from the Goryeo period, it is where Master Gyeongheo, who revived Korean Seon Buddhism i…
Churches & monasteries
익산시
A red-brick Gothic bell tower stands in front of a hanok nave with a tiled roof: this is Nabawi Catholic Church. One of Korea's early churches, it fuses traditional Korean architecture with Western church design and was designated a nation…
Churches & monasteries
인천광역시
On a hill in the old treaty port of Jemulpo, Dapdong Cathedral is the red-brick and granite seat of the Catholic Diocese of Incheon. Its three bell towers stand out from afar, and as one of the oldest Western-style church buildings in Kore…
Churches & monasteries
인천광역시
In the middle of Yeongjongdo, the island that is home to Incheon International Airport, a small temple called Yonggungsa sits at the end of a forest path on the north-eastern slopes of Baegunsan (255 m). It is modest in size, but it was re…
Churches & monasteries
장성군
At the end of a forest path a wide pond appears, and in it a two-storey pavilion and the white rock peak behind it are reflected upside down. Baegyangsa in Jangseong draws photographers every autumn for that one view. The temple and Baekha…
Churches & monasteries
강화군
This temple sits inside an old mountain fortress on Jeongjoksan, on Ganghwa Island. Jeondeungsa is said to have been founded in 381 during the Goguryeo period, which would make it the oldest surviving temple in Korea. It is a place full of…
Churches & monasteries
전주시
From the entrance to Jeonju Hanok Village, a red-brick bell tower rises above the tiled roofs. Jeondong Cathedral is famous as one of Korea's most beautiful churches, but the ground it stands on carries a heavier story: it was built on the…
Churches & monasteries
전주시
Walk past the busy lanes of Jeonju Hanok Village towards the Jeonjucheon stream and you suddenly reach quiet stone walls and enormous ginkgo trees. Jeonju Hyanggyo was the state-run Confucian school of the Joseon-era town and also a shrine…
Churches & monasteries
서울특별시
On a cliff above the Han River in Hapjeong-dong, Jeoldusan Martyrs' Shrine marks the place where large numbers of Catholics were executed during the persecution of 1866. A riverside walk with views of Yanghwa Bridge, a church holding marty…
Churches & monasteries
제주시
On the northern slopes of Hallasan, at about 650 m above sea level, Gwaneumsa is the head temple of the 23rd district of the Jogye Order, the temple that oversees Jeju's other Buddhist temples. Past the entrance gate, a sloping path is lin…
Churches & monasteries
서울특별시
Jogyesa in the middle of Jongno-gu, Seoul, is the head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. Its main hall and a lacebark pine thought to be around 500 years old stand among office towers, and the grounds are open 24 hours a day, s…
Churches & monasteries
철원군
Not far from the Demilitarized Zone, in the town of Dongsong in Cheorwon, a small temple shelters an iron Buddha that has sat here for more than a thousand years. Dopiansa's Iron Seated Vairocana Buddha carries an inscription on its back d…
Churches & monasteries
청도군
In the hills east of Cheongdo, a path through pine woods ends at a temple with a wide courtyard. In the middle stands a great pine whose branches droop to the ground like an umbrella, and nuns in grey robes pass to and fro beneath it. Unmu…
Churches & monasteries
춘천시
On the slopes of Obongsan north of Soyang Lake in Chuncheon, Cheongpyeongsa is known as "the temple on an island" because the classic way to reach it is by boat from the Soyang Dam landing. First built in 973, it still has the Goryeo Seonw…
Churches & monasteries
평창군
Far up the Odaesan valley, among fir and oak forest, stands Sangwonsa. Most of its buildings are recent reconstructions, but the temple keeps Korea's oldest bell and a statue of a boy deity linked to a legend about King Sejo. It is also th…
Churches & monasteries
평창군
Past the first gate, straight fir trees rise on both sides of the path as if to close off the sky. Woljeongsa on Odaesan is often remembered first for this forest walk. Beyond the trees, a Goryeo-era octagonal nine-storey pagoda stands in…
Churches & monasteries
하동군
Ssanggyesa sits on the southern foothills of Jirisan, in Hwagae-myeon, Hadong County, at the spot where two mountain streams meet. It was founded in 722, and in its courtyard still stands a stele composed and written by Choe Chi-won, the m…
Churches & monasteries
당진시
On a low hill south of Hapdeok-eup in Dangjin, South Chungcheong, a pair of red-brick twin bell towers looks out over the rice fields. This is Hapdeok Catholic Church, which began as the first parish in the Chungcheong region; the present…
Churches & monasteries
해남군
Down in Haenam, at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, a long forest path follows a valley of Duryunsan to a spacious temple ringed by peaks. Daeheungsa is where the robe and bowl of Seosan Daesa, the monk who led warrior monks in th…
Churches & monasteries
해남군
With the jagged white rock ridge of Dalmasan behind it, a wooden hall whose paint has almost entirely faded looks out over the West Sea. Mihwangsa in Haenam is the southernmost temple on the Korean mainland, loved for the view of sunset ov…