Majang Meat Market

마장축산물시장

An alley market dealing only in meat — 781 butchers and offal shops filling the lanes of Majang-dong. Wholesale and retail sit side by side across its 26,313 square metres, and buying meat to carry into a nearby room to grill is the usual way of eating here.

Language

The covered arcade of Majang Meat Market, lined with butchers' signs and chilled display cases as shoppers choose cuts of Korean beef

Place information

Korean name: 마장축산물시장
Address: 68 Majang-ro 35-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul (Majang-dong 439-1)
Admission: No entry fee — you pay each vendor

History

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Seoul Future Heritage record, Majang-dong takes its name from a horse-breeding ground that had been there since the early Joseon period. Horses were sent from there to carry news and orders from Hanyang to other parts of the country. After a slaughterhouse moved from Sungin-dong to Majang-dong, shops selling cattle offal and pig by-products grew around it, forming a cattle market. The slaughterhouse closed, but the meat market continues to operate.

1963
Useong Industrial slaughterhouse moves
1998
Slaughterhouse closure
October 2002
Selection for market improvements
2006
Registration as a traditional market
2013
Seoul Future Heritage designation

Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Future Heritage — Majang-dong meat market (No. 2013-086): the origin of the name Majang, the slaughterhouse's move from Sungin-dong in 1963 and the cattle market that grew around it, its demolition in 1998, the 2002 improvement programme and the 2006 registration as a traditional market · Sep 26, 2026

Nearby

Gyeongdong Market

It closes at 18:00 and most stores are shut on Sundays, so it suits a morning visit rather than an evening one. People come here for ginseng, medicinal herbs and ingredients more than for food.

Heunginjimun Gate

The eastern gate of the walled city, designated a Treasure in 1963. A crescent-shaped barbican wraps its outer face — the only one of the four main gates built with one.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza

It closes three days a year and otherwise runs 10:00 to 20:00, but that figure covers the site, not what is inside it — each hall keeps its own hours according to whatever exhibition is running. Check the programme, not the building.

Naksan Park

A park on the lowest of the four hills that ringed the old walled city. A stretch of the city wall runs along its ridge, and the centre of Seoul lies below it on the far side.

Stories about this place

Seoul Wholesale and Specialist Markets: Garak Auctions and Three More
Four Seoul markets used mainly by the trades and local shoppers rather than visitors — the Garak produce and seafood wholesale market, Dongdaemun Jonghap for fabric and haberdashery, Majang for meat, and Seoul Jungang, a neighbourhood market — compared on what each deals in, who it suits and what time to go. Garak's auctions start at a different hour for each commodity, and those shift by season and by wholesaler.

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