Suwon Hwaseong Fortress
수원화성
"Suwon Hwaseong admission" is a question with no answer, because the fortress does not charge one. The 2,000 won everybody quotes is the ticket for Haenggung, the palace inside the wall — a different place with a gate, a closing time and a last entry.
Language
Place information
- Korean name
- 수원화성
- Address
- Around 320-2 Yeonghwa-dong, Jangan-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do
- Getting there
- Bus 11, 13 · Suwon Station (수원역) (Exit 4)
- Opening hours
- open at all hours
- Closed
- Open year-round
- Hours notes
- The fortress wall itself is open all year with no set hours, and the operator states that night walking is possible.
- Time needed
- Half day
- Admission
- Free
Prices
| Admission | FreeThe fortress wall itself is free all year and open, walkable at night. The charge applies to Haenggung Palace. |
|---|---|
| Hwaseong trolley · Adult | ₩6,000 |
| Hwaseong trolley · Youth(soldiers and young people) | ₩3,500 |
| Hwaseong trolley · Child | ₩2,000 |
| Hwaseong trolley · Group(groups of 20 or more, adult) | ₩4,500 |
| Hwaseong trolley · Group(groups of 20 or more, soldiers and young people) | ₩2,500 |
| Hwaseong trolley · Group(groups of 20 or more, children) | ₩1,500 |
Filmed here
Twenty-Five Twenty-One(스물다섯 스물하나)K-drama
Namporu Pavilion on the fortress wall.
Itaewon ClassK-drama
Namporu Pavilion on the fortress wall — Suwon City names it for this and for 《Twenty-Five Twenty-One》 together.
Suwon City — its drama filming-location course, each stop with its work and address ·
Lovely Runner(선재 업고 튀어)K-drama
Hwahongmun and Banghwasuryujeong with its pond, Yongyeon. Suwon City names both for this drama, and both are structures of this fortress — its north water gate and its northeast pavilion, with the pond below.
Suwon City — its drama filming-location course, each stop with its work and address ·
What to see
Janganmun Gate
The north gate, built in 1794. Its gatehouse was destroyed in the Korean War and rebuilt in 1975. A jar-shaped barbican stands outside it with a guard post to either side. With Paldalmun in the south, it is the grandest and highest-ranking structure on the wall.
Paldalmun Gate
Treasure 402, the south gate, built in 1794 and dismantled for repair in 2013. It matches Janganmun in scale and form: ground was broken on the same day, and each stage finished about a week behind.
Changnyongmun Gate
The east gate, built in 1795, its gatehouse destroyed in the Korean War and rebuilt in 1976. It sits where the wall folds inward, so the projecting stretches to either side shelter it without needing a barbican. A rank below Janganmun and Paldalmun: one storey, hipped-and-gabled.
Hwaseomun Gate
Treasure 403. The west gate, placed to the northwest because Paldalsan stands in the west. Open ground outside it is why the tall Seobuk Gongsimdon was raised alongside. Built in 1796 and little altered since, it shows the plain precision of eighteenth-century building.
Seobuk Gongsimdon
Treasure 1710. A gongsimdon is a hollow watchtower, and Hwaseong is the only Korean fortress that has one. Three brick storeys on a projecting bastion, a single-storey pavilion on top, gun ports through the outer wall. Touring the finished fortress in early 1797, King Jeongjo stopped here and said it was the first of its kind ever built in Korea and they should look their fill. Of the three, only this one survives as built.
Dongbuk Gongsimdon
The northeastern watchtower, and unlike its western counterpart it stands inside the wall. A three-storey brick cylinder whose passage spirals from the door up to the lookout, which earned it the nickname 'the conch tower'. Chae Je-gong climbed it in early 1797 and called the winding stair strange and ingenious. More than half of it fell in the Korean War; it was rebuilt in 1976.
Banghwasuryujeong (Northeast Pavilion)
Treasure 1709. A lookout on the fortress's northeastern key point, raised on the Yongdu rock to watch the ground and fire on it. It is a military structure that spent most of its life as a place to sit and look at the pond. Jeongjo read its other name, Banghwasuryujeong, as pointing at Hwasan, where his father's tomb lay, and Yucheon, where he had moved the town. The heated room that normally sits on a lookout's ground floor is here on the upper one, with windows, for the king.
Yongyeon Pond
The pond outside the north wall. It takes its name from the Yongdu — dragon's head — rock, and the pavilion on that rock is also called Yongdugak. When the pond overflows it drains west into the Suwoncheon through an outlet carved with an imugi, still in its original form. The moon rising in the water is one of the sights the fortress is measured by.
Hwahongmun (North Water Gate)
The water gate where the north wall meets the Suwoncheon: seven arches, a stone bridge over them, a pavilion on top of that. The pavilion was built to watch for an enemy and used, in practice, to sit in. Water breaking through the arches in spray is one of the sights the fortress is measured by.
Seojangdae (West Command Post)
The command post on the summit of Paldalsan, three bays a side below and one above, narrowing as it rises: the commander directed drill from the lower floor, sentries watched from the upper. Jeongjo held the military review here, and a painting of the 1795 one survives. The two boards under the upper eaves are the only ones in the fortress that Jeongjo both composed and wrote out.
Dongjangdae (Yeonmudae)
The other command post, also called Yeonmudae. Of the two, this was where the troops drilled day to day and Seojangdae was where drill was directed. The ground is terraced in three, with a ramp up the middle of the yard so the commander could ride up it. On 19 August 1796, as construction closed, some 2,700 overseers and labourers were fed here.
Bongdon (Beacon Tower)
The beacon tower. Beacons normally stood high and out of the way; this one was put on the open east side so it could be read directly from the palace. Wall, interior and stair are all brick, which makes it the fortress's showpiece in that material. Five fire-holes sit on the raised platform: one lit at the south end in ordinary times, more as the situation worsened, all five in war.
Janganmun Gate selected
Nearby
Stories about this place
- A Half-Day Walk in Suwon: Hwaseong Haenggung, Suwon Hwaseong and Haengnidan-gil
A half-day route that starts at Hwaseong Haenggung, follows the Suwon Hwaseong wall from Seojangdae through Hwaseomun and Janganmun to Banghwasuryujeong, and ends at Haengnidan-gil.
- Suwon Drama Filming Locations: Hwaseong, Ilwol, Wolhwawon, Hallim
From Namporu on the Hwaseong wall in Twenty-Five Twenty-One to Hwahongmun in Lovely Runner, here is what is actually there at the four filming locations Suwon City points visitors to. Hwaseong holds three of the spots along one wall; the other three places sit in separate districts.
- Itaewon Class Filming Locations — Seoul and Suwon
The three confirmed Itaewon Class locations in this guide, set out by scene, by what is there now, and by where they sit. The two in Seoul connect on foot; Suwon Hwaseong comes from a different source and belongs to a different day.
- Suwon Hwaseong Fortress: Construction History and What to See
How King Jeongjo built Hwaseong Fortress at Suwon between 1794 and 1796, the defensive features unique to its walls, and what survives today versus what has been restored.
- Six Day Trips from Seoul: How to Check Admission and Opening Hours
Everland, Korean Folk Village, Hwaseong, the Garden of Morning Calm, Nami Island and Jarasum compared on what to check about admission and opening hours, with who each suits and how to group them by direction. Everland sets its closing time by date, Hwaseong's quoted 2,000 won is for Hwaseong Haenggung, and Nami Island's ticket includes the round-trip boat.
Nearby Food
Travel Guides
Related articles
Where these facts come from
- Suwon Cultural Foundation — Hwaseong visitor information (the fortress: open at all times all year, no closing day, free; the Hwaseong trolley fare table) ·
- Suwon City tourism — Hwaseong Fortress (address 'around 320-2 Yeonghwa-dong, Jangan-gu, Suwon'; open all year at all hours, open-air and visitable at night; no closing day; free). The Korea Heritage Service portal gives the Historic Site's location as 1-2 Jangan-dong, Paldal-gu — another official notation of the same heritage site. ·
- Korea Heritage Service open API — the coordinates of 'Suwon Hwaseong' (ccbaCpno 1333100030000): latitude 37.281792, longitude 127.013255. This is the representative point the Korea Heritage Service gives for the fortress as a whole, not any particular gate or entrance, and it differs from the palace's point in the same response (37.28184, 127.01481). ·
- Suwon Cultural Foundation — how to reach the main points. 'From Suwon Station Exit 4 (in front of the Novotel), take city bus 11 or 13 at the Suwon Station Novotel stop, get off at the Hwaseong Haenggung / Suwon Seongji stop, and walk about 5 minutes to Hwaseong Haenggung.' The Suwon Hwaseong tourism site (visitsuwon.or.kr) carries the same sentence. The wall has no single entrance, so this is written as the representative way in to the fortress as a whole; the stop you get off at is beside Hwaseong Haenggung. ·
- Suwon Cultural Foundation — about Hwaseong ·
- Suwon Cultural Foundation — the fortress facilities ·
- Korea Tourism Organization — K-drama filming locations ·
- Suwon City — its drama filming-location course, each stop with its work and address ·