Guides

Helpful travel and culture guides for Korea.

Region

All regions Seoul Jeju Busan Incheon Jeonnam-Gwangju Jeollanam-do

Gwangju National Museum

Gwangju National Museum, opened on December 6, 1978, was established to promote the development of cultural arts and to foster patriotism. Gwangju National Museum’s goal is to conserve cultural values through the collection and preservation of historical and valuable artifacts found in the Gwangju and Jeollanam-do regions as well as make contributions to the community through continuous research, exhibition, and education. With over 160,000 artifacts as well as various educational and experience programs, the museum aims to provide an enjoyable cultural center for visitors.

Naju Pear Museum

Known as the birthplace of Korean pears, Naju pears are well-known for its long history. The fruit was exported worldwide starting in 1967. The Naju Pear Museum promotes the fruit and is a learning center for its agricultural history. The museum opened on April 20, 1992 and is the world's only pear museum.

Korea Bamboo Museum

The Korean Bamboo Museum is a comprehensive complex that preserves, exhibits, produces, and allows people to experience bamboo products. First opened in 1981 at Damju-ri, the museum was expanded and relocated to the current location in March 1998. Not only does the museum provide bamboo-related exhibitions, it also provides techniques on making bamboo products as well as holds the Bamboo Festival every May.

Gokseong Leisure Culture Center

Gokseong Leisure Culture Center was built to provide culture, education, and leisure facilities to the public. There are three concert and lecture halls, Dongak Art Hall, Seomjin Hall, and Daehwang Hall. There are also facilities for hobby and health classes. The center opened on March 11, 2010.

Kimdaejung Convention Center

Kimdaejung Convention Center is a state-of-the-art facility in Gwangju, a city with rich cultural heritage and tourism resources. It was built as part of the efforts to promote Gwangju’s competitiveness as a main trade city in northeast Asia to boost local economy and, particularly, tourism resources. The center has served as a main venue for international meetings and exchanges (concerning products, information, culture, and technologies), significantly improving Gwangju’s image. Outstanding services, professional staff, and diverse amenities will make any meeting at Kimdaejung Convention Center pleasant and successful.

Gangjin Goryeo Celadon Museum

Goryeo Celadon Museum was established to preserve and promote Gangjin celadon, as well as foster knowledge and creativity in regards to celedon in the next generation. The exhibition halls feature smart pads and audio explanations, combining modern technology with ancient relics for better understanding. This museum is considered to be an informative historic site to get knowledge of Goryeo Celadon through the past, present and future.

Yeongam Pottery Museum

Yeongam Pottery Museum is dedicated to promoting the history of pottery in Korea, starting from the oldest known pottery coming from Gurim Village. Visitors can learn about the history of this art form through exhibitions, educational programs, and hands-on experiences. Locally produced pottery is also available for sale. Nearby attractions include the Wangin Historic Site and Ha Jung-woong Museum of Art.

Korea Gasa Literature Collection

The Gasa Literature Collection was completed in October 2000 and is located in Damyang, Jeollanam-do, an area which is famous for its fertile land and rich historical heritage. Apart from the main building, additional buildings include a souvenir shop, and traditional tea house. In the museum, historical literature such as “Myeonangjip” (a collection of Gasa poems by Song Sun) and “Songgangjip,” (a collection of Gasa poems by Jeong Cheol) are on display. There are 11,461 artifacts and literature on Gasa culture, 18 Gasa works, and 15,000 books about Gasa.

Arario Museum Tapdong Cinema

Arario Museum Tapdong Cinema was created by Kim Chang-il, a famous artwork collector in Korea, who reused an abandoned building to make a contemporary art museum. The building did not go through extreme renovation, allowing visitors enjoy the building's original features along with the artworks. The underground floor and four ground floors hold exhibits where visitors can take photographs (flash photography not allowed), and the fifth floor houses a souvenir shop and a cafe where visitors can relax and enjoy panoramic views of the old city center and Tap-dong.

Amorepacific Museum of Art

Amorepacific Museum of Art, located in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, was originally a museum exhibiting artworks collected by the late Seo Seong-hwan, the founder of Amorepacific, but later changed its name to Amorepacific Museum of Art, or APMA, in 2009 and has since been operating as an art exhibition hall. The mission upon its foundation was seeking to be "a space where beauty in the midst of daily lives is discovered" and communicating with the public. In accordance with this objective, the museum collects, researches, and exhibits Korean ancient art and both Korean and international contemporary art while, also, aiding researchers, scholars, and young artists. The underground exhibition hall hosts diverse exhibits encompassing ancient art, contemporary art, and Korean art. The 1st floor of the "Atrium," an enormous space that continues from the 1st to 3rd floors, features the museum lobby, a museum shop, an exhibition space called "APMA Cabinet" and apLAP, which is a library of art exhibition brochures from around the world. The art museum is located on the 1st floor of the new Amorepacific headquarters building, a famous work of architectural beauty of Yongsan designed after white porcelain.

ARKO Art Center

ARKO Art Center was founded in 1974 as Misulhoegwan in a building of former Deoksu Hospital in Gwanhun-dong, Jongno-gu to offer much-needed exhibition space for artists and arts groups. In 1979, Misulhoegwan moved to its present building, designed by preeminent Korean architect Kim Swoo-geun (1931-1986) and located in Marronnier Park, the former site of Seoul National University. The two neighboring brick buildings accommodating ARKO Art Center and ARKO Arts Theater are the major landmarks of the district of Daehakro. As more public and private museums and commercial galleries came into the art scene in the 1990s, Misulhoegwan shifted to curating and presenting its own exhibitions. Renamed as Marronnier Art Center in 2002, ARKO Art Center assumed a full-fledged art museum system and played an increasingly prominent role as a public arts organization leading the contemporary art paradigm. When The Korea Culture and Arts Foundation was reborn as Arts Council Korea, Marronnier Art Center became ARKO Art Center named after the abbreviation for Arts Council Korea in 2005. ARKO Art Center is committed to working as a platform where research, production, exhibitions and the exchange of creative activities grow and develop in connection with one another in addition to having a diversity of programs including thematic exhibitions addressing social agenda and public programs widely promoting various discourses in art.

Arte Museum Jeju

Arte Museum is the nation's largest immersive media art exhibition presented by world-class digital design company d'strict, which is also famous for the “WAVE” at Coex. The museum displays ten of the most colorful media art exhibits created by lights and sounds on a grand floor space of 4,628 square meters with a maximum x_height of 10 meters which had once been used as a speaker manufacturing factory.

Busan Cinema Center

Busan Cinema Center serves as both the venue of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) and a cultural space hosting film screenings, performances, and exhibitions. It has BIFF Theater with nearly 4,000 seats, Cinema I, Cinema II, Cinematheque, Haneulyeon Theater, Indieplus, and Library.

Ahn Junggeun Memorial Museum

The Ahn Junggeun Memorial Museum honors the memory of Ahn Junggeun (1879-1910), an independence activist and soldier who advocated for Korean independence and peace in Asia. He fought against the Japanese to defend the Korean Empire (1897-1910). He was executed in 1910 for assassinating Hirobumi Ito, the Japanese who led the invasion of Korea in 1909, in Harbin, China.

Appenzeller Noble Memorial Museum

The Appenzeller Noble Memorial Museum is dedicated to Henry Gerhart Appenzeller, the missionary who opened the first Western-style educational institution in Korea in 1885. The school started with English and core subjects, but expanded into the Pai Chai University, Pai Chai High School, and Pai Chai Middle School and has many famous alumni, including Rhee Syng-man. The memorial hall opened in 2008 in the east wing of the original school building, which was built in 1916 and designated as a Seoul Monument. With dynamically arranged permanent exhibitions, annual special exhibitions and special lectures, the museum offers a unique learning experience to visitors and people with an interest in the history of education in Korea.

Blue Square

Blue Square is a multipurpose performance venue located in Hannam-dong. It includes Shinhan Card Hall, a performance hall dedicated to musicals with 1,776 seats, and Mastercard Hall, a multipurpose performance hall with 1,400 seats. Blue Square also includes the Book Park, which has a collection of nearly 75,000 books, and a café with a terrace that looks toward the Namsan Mountain. Many visitors come to the Blue Square to see its collection of popular musicals and other performances.

Africa Museum of Art

The Africa Museum of Art was established with the purpose of hosting various art festivals and providing the grounds for researching various art themes. A major principle of the gallery is to promote works of art that actively attempt to explore the human mind.

BEXCO

BEXCO is a large international exhibition/convention center in the middle of Busan. It offers spacious exhibition halls as large as three football fields combined, multi-purpose halls, and outdoor exhibition halls. Equipped with advanced equipment, the convention center is ideal for holding international exhibitions, meetings, concerts, or sporting events.