Gwanghwamun Square: What to See Between the Statues

For most travellers, Gwanghwamun Square is a passage. You come up from the subway, take a photograph in front of the King Sejong statue, and walk toward Gyeongbokgung. Five minutes.

But beneath this square are two free exhibition halls. Beneath your feet is a 212-metre timeline inscribed with six centuries of Korean history. And in front of Gwanghwamun Gate is a stone terrace that returned after a hundred years. What takes five minutes can take an hour, once you know what is there.

The square was rebuilt in 2022

The current square reopened in August 2022 after twenty-one months of construction. What changed was the scale.

	Before	Now
Total area	18,840 m²	40,300 m² (2.1×)
Width	35 m	60 m
Green space	2,830 m²	9,367 m² (about 25% of the square)

The key move was removing the western traffic lane in front of the Sejong Center. Before, the square was an island in the middle of a road. Now it connects to the western footpath. Five thousand trees were planted. Excavated remains of the Saheonbu gate site are displayed in a sunken court about 1.2 metres below ground level, preserved in place.

The two statues

The King Sejong statue was unveiled on Hangeul Day in 2009. Sculpted by Kim Young-won, it stands 6.2 metres tall on a 4.2-metre base. The three objects in front — a celestial globe, a rain gauge and a sundial — are models of scientific instruments from Sejong’s reign. They are not decoration. They represent astronomy, rainfall measurement and timekeeping.

The Admiral Yi Sun-sin statue is much older. Erected in 1968, sculpted by Kim Se-jung. The figure is 6.5 metres, the pedestal 10.5 metres, giving a total height of 17 metres. A turtle ship model and a bronze drum sit at the base.

The two statues stand on the square’s north-south axis: Yi Sun-sin to the south, Sejong to the north. The axis ends at Gwanghwamun Gate.

Underground — the part most people walk past

Directly beneath the King Sejong statue are two exhibition halls: Sejong Story and Chungmugong Story. They connect underground.

	Details
Admission	Free (paid hands-on activities 2,000 won each)
Hours	10:00–18:30 (last entry 18:00)
Late opening	April–December Fridays until 21:00 (last entry 20:30)
Closed	Every Monday (if Monday is a public holiday, open that day and closed the next weekday)
Entrances	Behind the King Sejong statue / Sejong Center main theatre / In front of the KT building

People get the entrance wrong. Posts online say “subway exit 9 is the entrance.” That is not accurate. Exit 9 leads into the Haechi Madang underground concourse. If you are arriving by subway, exits 1, 7 and 8 of Gwanghwamun Station (Line 5) are better. If you are already on the square, walk around to the back of the King Sejong statue — there are stairs.

On a hot summer afternoon or a rainy day, these two halls are especially useful. They are free, climate-controlled and a three-minute walk from Gwanghwamun. Other free museums in the area are gathered in a separate article: free museums near Gyeongbokgung.

Haechi Madang and the history waterway

Haechi Madang is the underground plaza connecting Line 5 Gwanghwamun Station to the square. It has an information desk, a lounge and a soil-strata display on the walls. A 53-metre media wall runs video daily from 08:00 to 22:00.

Come up to the surface and the ground itself tells a story. The history waterway runs for 212 metres, inscribed with the years from the founding of Joseon in 1392 to 2022. It begins at Yukjo Madang. Walk it with your eyes on the ground and six hundred years scroll past.

Yukjo Madang is the lawn at the north end of the square, directly connected to Gwanghwamun Gate and the woldae terrace. It symbolises the Six Ministries Avenue of the Joseon period. The lawn is 2,492 m² and is maintained without stage installations to preserve the sightline. The protective shelter for the excavated Saheonbu gate remains is here, too.

The fountains — the hours are different in 2026

The water features run from April 1 to October 31. In 2026, a resource-security alert briefly shortened operating hours, but the alert was lifted on August 3 and normal hours resumed. The current schedule:

Period	Hours
July 15 – August 31, 2026	11:00–21:00
September 1 – October 31, 2026	11:00–20:00

Weekdays, weekends and public holidays are the same. Information from 2025 and earlier that says “starts at 10:00” is not correct for 2026.

Each fountain carries a meaning.

• Tunnel Fountain — 77 water jets, marking the 77th anniversary of liberation.
• Myeongnyang Fountain — 133 inner nozzles represent the 133 Japanese ships at the Battle of Myeongnyang. The outer nozzles form the crane-wing formation.
• Hangeul Fountain — shaped like Korean consonants and vowels.
• Floor Fountain — jets from a concave basin in the ground.

If you have children in summer, you will lose time here. If you are wearing hanbok, stay outside the splash radius.

Gwanghwamun Woldae — what came back after a hundred years

On October 15, 2023, the woldae (月臺) — the broad stone terrace in front of the palace gate — was restored and opened to the public.

• Dimensions: 48.7 m north to south, 29.7 m east to west. The central eodo, the king’s path, is 7 m wide, flanked by the ministers’ paths on either side — a three-part composition.
• The restoration is based on the Gyeongbokgung Yeonggeon Ilgi (Construction Diary), which records: “On the third day of the third month of 1866, a woldae was built in front of Gwanghwamun.”
• Gwanghwamun is the only palace gate whose woldae has stone balustrades.
• In 1923, the Japanese colonial government pulled up the balustrades and buried them to lay tram tracks. In 1966, the site was covered in concrete.
• The two seosu-sang statues that once flanked the eodo approach were donated by the family of the late Lee Kun-hee to the National Palace Museum in August 2023 and returned to their original positions.

On the same day, the Gwanghwamun plaque was replaced. The current black background with gold lettering follows the Gyeongbokgung Yeonggeon Ilgi description of heukjil-geumja — black ground, gold characters. Compare it with photographs of the white-background, black-letter plaque that hung from 2010 to 2023 and the impression is markedly different.

The guard ceremonies — four a day

Four ceremonies run daily in the Gwanghwamun area. They are easy to confuse, so here they are in a table.

Ceremony	Time	Duration	Location
Guard changing ceremony	10:00 · 14:00	20 min	Heungnyemun plaza (inside the palace)
Gwanghwamun gatekeeper ceremony	11:00 · 13:00	10 min	Gwanghwamun (in front of the woldae)
Guard public training	09:35 · 13:35	15 min	Training ground outside Hyeopsaengmun
Gwanghwamun sentry duty	Every hour after ceremonies	—	Gwanghwamun

• None of these run on Tuesdays. The palace is closed.
• From March to May and September to November, on weekends and public holidays, a guard patrol ceremony runs from 15:00 to 16:00. On Saturdays the patrol moves inside the palace. On Sundays it walks from Gwanghwamun woldae to Insadong.
• If a severe heat warning is issued, everything stops. This happened in practice on August 5, 2026. Ceremonies resumed on August 8. Rain, heavy snow and fine dust can also cancel them.
• The Deoksugung Daehanmun gatekeeper ceremony is a different event, run by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. It runs daily at 11:00 and 14:00 and rests on Mondays.

If you are coming specifically for a ceremony, the gatekeeper ceremony (11:00 and 13:00) is actually easier to catch. You do not need to enter the palace — it takes place right in front of Gwanghwamun. A more detailed schedule and viewing guide is in a separate article: the guard ceremony timetable.

When there is a rally

Gwanghwamun Square and Sejong-daero are a frequent rally site. Saturday afternoons are the most common. Some lanes of Sejong-daero become protest space, and if the event is large enough, the Gwanghwamun intersection to Sejong intersection stretch may be closed.

Here is the practical workaround for travellers.

Check conditions on the day: Seoul Metropolitan Police’s daily rally and protest schedule, Seoul TOPIS traffic control notices, and the Gwanghwamun Square official events calendar.

One more thing. Every Wednesday at noon, the Wednesday Demonstration is held at the Statue of Peace in front of the former Japanese embassy. It sits along Yulgok-ro between Anguk Station and Gwanghwamun, so it can intersect a walking route toward Bukchon. In May 2026, the barriers around the statue were fully removed after five years and eleven months.

Crossing this square in hanbok

If you rent hanbok near Gyeongbokgung, you will cross Gwanghwamun Square. A few practical notes from the shop side.

• A photograph on the woldae is now the newest composition in the area. It did not exist in photographs taken before 2023.
• The square has little shade. On a midsummer day, ducking into the Sejong Story underground hall is the only reliable way to cool down.
• The gatekeeper ceremony (11:00 and 13:00) takes place right in front of Gwanghwamun — easy to slot in right before entering the palace.
• The fountains spray. Remember that the hanbok is rented.
• When entering the palace from Gwanghwamun, hanbok wearers do not stop at the ticket office. You walk straight to Heungnyemun, where they check and wave you through.

Times, prices and operating information here are current as of publication and may change. Fountain hours and ceremony cancellations, in particular, shift with each year’s weather.

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