Sorokdo

Across a narrow channel from Nokdong Port, at the tip of the Goheung Peninsula, lies Sorokdo. Its name means "small deer island", after the shape of its coastline. The pine forests and neat gardens look peaceful, yet for more than a century the island was a place where people with Hansen's disease (leprosy) were isolated. It is one of the few places in Korea where beautiful scenery and a painful history meet so directly.

History: an island of isolation

The island's story changed in 1916, when the Japanese colonial government opened Sorokdo Charity Hospital here. During the colonial period it became a facility where patients from all over Korea were confined by force and subjected to abuses such as forced labour and sterilisation. English-language sources put the number of patients at about 6,000 in 1940. The island was divided into a patient zone and a staff zone, and even on visiting days patients could only see their families from a set distance.

The isolation policy continued long after liberation. In August 1945, dozens of patients who demanded self-government were killed by hospital staff, and forced sterilisations and abortions went on until around the 1990s. Only after a law on the victims of these abuses was passed in 2007 did investigations and compensation begin.

What to see

• Former autopsy room (1934): Here the bodies of patients who died were dissected regardless of their families' wishes, and sterilisations were performed. The autopsy table and washing facilities are still in place.
• Detention house: Used to lock up patients who broke the rules, it was set up under a regulation issued in 1935.
• Mallyeongdang (1937): The ossuary where patients' remains were kept in wooden boxes, a cylindrical concrete building.
• House of Marianne and Margaret: Two Austrian nurses, Marianne and Margaret, arrived in 1962 and cared for patients for more than 40 years. The brick house they lived in is now a registered heritage site.
• Hansen's Disease Museum: It documents the island's history and was designated a national specialised museum in 2019.
• Central Park and shore paths: Carefully tended gardens lead to pine woods by the sea.

Good to know

• Yi Cheong-jun's novel Your Paradise is set on Sorokdo.
• A Shinto shrine that patients were forced to build under colonial rule still stands, one of very few left in Korea.

Things to reflect on as you walk

The division between the patients' zone and the staff housing zone still exists on Sorokdo. After seeing the white autopsy table and the cramped cells of the detention house, a walk through the seaside pines feels very different. The island's Catholic church, Protestant church and Won Buddhist hall bear witness to the communities residents built during their long isolation. Not every trace is of oppression: a stone that patients put up in 1930 to honour a director who treated them kindly also survives.

Tripto tips

• Getting there: You can drive across the 1,160 m Sorok Bridge, opened in 2009. Buses also run from Nokdong Bus Terminal.
• Etiquette: The whole island belongs to Sorokdo National Hospital, and elderly former patients still live here. Their residential areas are closed to outsiders, so stay in the open areas and on signed paths, and do not photograph residents.
• Hours: Visiting hours and whether the museum is open can change, so check with the hospital before you go. Touring the open areas takes about 1.5–2.5 hours.
• Combine with: Many visitors eat seafood at Nokdong Port and continue across the bridge to Geogeumdo island.