Beyond the wall and 경복궁 👑

If you've ever walked up to the big stone gate in central Seoul, you've probably noticed that half the crowd out front is wearing hanbok. If you wear a hanbok and you get in for free! So, on any given day you'll see groups of friends and couples in rented outfits posing for photos before they even step inside. I mean, it also just makes for a good photo.

While you're out front, time it right and you'll also catch 수문장교대식, the royal guard changing ceremony, where guards in traditional uniform march through a small reenactment of how the palace gates used to be guarded.

That gate, and everything behind it, is 경복궁. It's the one everyone knows. But it's not the only palace in the city, and it's definitely not the only piece of old Seoul still standing.

The Five Grand Palaces of the Korean Empire, as shown on an 1901 map of Seoul

경복궁 itself

The name breaks down nicely. 경 means "to celebrate" or "blessing," 복 means "good fortune," and 궁 just means "palace." Put it together and you get something like "palace of shining fortune." It was built in 1395 as the main royal palace of the newly founded Joseon dynasty, so this thing is over 600 years old, though what you're walking through today is mostly reconstruction. The Japanese burned most of it during their invasions in the 1590s, and a huge chunk of what was rebuilt got torn down again during the Japanese colonial period in the early 1900s to make room for a government building. Korea has been slowly restoring it ever since, and that restoration project is still ongoing right now.

Inside, keep an eye out for 근정전, the throne hall, where kings held official ceremonies. 근정 roughly means "diligent governance," which is a nice bit of pressure to put on yourself every time you sit down at work.

The other four palaces

Seoul actually has five grand palaces total, known together as 오대궁. 오 is the number five, 대 means "great," and 궁 is palace, so it's literally "the five great palaces."

창덕궁 is arguably the most beautiful of the bunch, and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site for good reason. Rather than the strict symmetrical layout of 경복궁, 창덕궁 was built to work with the natural shape of the land behind it. That "behind it" part is 후원, the rear garden, and it's stunning. You need a guided tour to get into most of it, so book ahead if you want to see it.

창경궁 sits right next to 창덕궁 and was originally built as a residence for retired kings and queens. During the colonial period, the Japanese converted parts of it into a zoo and botanical garden.

덕수궁 is the one downtown, right by City Hall, and it's unique because it mixes traditional Korean architecture with Western-style stone buildings. That's because it was used by King Gojong in the late 1800s and early 1900s, right as Korea was opening up to Western influence and eventually losing its independence.

경희궁 is the quiet one. Most of it was demolished during the colonial period and never fully rebuilt, so today it's smaller and far less crowded.

한양도성, the wall around it all

The Four Great Gates (사대문) and Four Minor Gates (사소문) of Seoul's fortress wall.

Seoul used to be a walled city. The wall is called 한양도성, and 한양 is actually the old name for Seoul itself, going back to the Joseon founding. 도 here means "capital," and 성 means "wall" or "fortress," so 도성 is literally "capital wall." The wall was built to protect the capital and stretched across four mountains ringing the city, and large sections of it are still standing or have been restored, especially around 낙산 and 인왕산.

Along the wall were gates, and the four main ones are called 사대문. 사 is four, 대 means "great," 문 means "gate." The most famous is 숭례문, better known by its nickname 남대문, meaning South Gate. It burned down in an arson attack back in 2008 and was fully restored by 2013. The east gate is 흥인지문, or 동대문, and if that name sounds familiar, it's because the entire shopping district around it borrows its name.

But there were also four smaller gates in between the big four, called 사소문. 소 here means "small," so these are the "four minor gates." 혜화문 sat to the northeast, 광희문 to the southeast, 소의문 to the southwest, and 창의문 to the northwest. Not all of them made it to today. 소의문 was torn down during the colonial period and never rebuilt, but 창의문 is actually still standing in its original form, tucked up in the hills near 부암동, and it's one of the few gates you can visit that was never destroyed or reconstructed.

The wall was originally built in 1396, right after 한양 was named the capital, and it stretched about 18.6 km around the four inner mountains: 백악산, 낙산, 남산, and 인왕산. It started as a mix of stone and earth, then got rebuilt in stone during King Sejong's reign, and you can actually tell the construction period apart just by looking at the stones. Bigger, roughly-cut stones are from the earliest Joseon builds. Smaller, neatly squared-off stones stacked in tidy rows are from later repairs under later kings.

서울 성곽길, the trail that runs along the wall, exists today because a lot of restoration work has gone into bringing the wall back. Large sections that were lost or damaged over the centuries, especially during the colonial period and the rapid development of Seoul afterward, have been rebuilt and reconnected into a walkable trail.

서울 성곽길