Hahoe Village: History of the Pungsan Ryu Clan Village

At a glance

• 🌳Settled at the end of Goryeo

  The Pungsan Ryu formed the village when Ryu Jong-hye took ground here at the close of the Goryeo dynasty.

• 👥Not the first family here

  The Heo and An families are thought to have lived here before the Ryu; a record notes the Ryu were the most numerous by 1635.

• 🛤️One lane, two sides

  The central inner lane runs from the entrance to Yangjindang and Chunghyodang, and divides the village into a north side and a south side.

• 🌏UNESCO, 2010

  Inscribed with Yangdong as Historic Villages of Korea.

Joseon (조선, the dynasty that ruled Korea from 1392 to 1910) organised society around the patrilineal lineage, and the clan village is that idea turned into a settlement plan. One family line holds the land, the ancestral shrine and the social authority; other households live in relation to it.

Hahoe is a clan village where the Pungsan Ryu took ground and have lived, in Hahoe-ri, Pungcheon-myeon, Andong.

The founding is dated and named. The Pungsan Ryu at Hahoe begin with Ryu Jong-hye, the eighth-generation figure known by the title Jeonseogong, who settled here at the end of the Goryeo dynasty. The village then flourished through Ryu Jung-yeong (1515–1573) and his two sons, Ryu Un-ryong and Ryu Seong-ryong. Goryeo, the dynasty that preceded Joseon, is covered in the Goryeo overview.

Here is the detail that keeps the story honest. The Ryu were not the first people here: the Heo and the An families are thought to have lived at Hahoe before them, and according to the records it was by 1635 that the Ryu were the most numerous.

So the village was not founded as a Ryu village in a single act. It became one over roughly two and a half centuries. At Hahoe the result of that process is still laid out on the ground, which is what the rest of this article reads.

The generation that made Hahoe prominent is the one to know.

Ryu Jung-yeong's two sons were Ryu Un-ryong, known by the style name Gyeomam, and Ryu Seong-ryong, known as Seoae.

Ryu Seong-ryong served as chief state councillor during the Imjin War — the Japanese invasions that began in 1592 — and it is because of him that the village's name appears in national history rather than only in local history. The academy that enshrines him, Byeongsan Seowon, is 3 km away, and the two sites are one story split across two places.

That relationship is worth carrying between them. Hahoe is where the family lived. Byeongsan is where the member who served as chief state councillor was studied, remembered and honoured after his death.

The village sits inside a bend of the river, which is where its name comes from — hahoe means the river turning back on itself. Everything else follows the slope.

The lanes and house sites were laid out on ground that falls away on all four sides. The central inner lane runs from the village entrance towards Yangjindang and Chunghyodang, with other lanes branching from it in every direction, and the village is divided by that central lane into a north side and a south side.

That is a social map, not just a street plan. The main houses sit on the lane; the branch households sit off it. Walking the central lane first and the side lanes afterwards gives you the hierarchy in the order it was built.

The encyclopedia also names what the village is composed of, and it is worth using as a checklist: living space, ritual space, and space for productive work — with folk-belief facilities in particular well preserved and still transmitted.

That last clause is the one that is easy to walk past. Alongside the Confucian architecture of the head houses, Hahoe kept its village-level folk religion — the shrine sites, the guardian trees, the mask tradition. Two religious systems in one village, one of them official and one of them not.

Two honest cautions.

First, this is a living village, not a preserved set. Houses are occupied, repaired, re-roofed and modernised inside. Some structures are centuries old; others have been rebuilt within living memory. Do not assume that every building you see is untouched Joseon fabric — a village that people have continuously lived in cannot be, and would be a very different kind of place if it were.

Second, the protections are modern. Hahoe was designated National Folk Cultural Heritage on 14 January 1984, covering 1,577 land parcels and 6,495,535 square metres — an area, not a list of buildings, which is the correct way to protect a settlement. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2010, together with Yangdong, as Historic Villages of Korea.

The inscription is a pair. Yangdong, in Gyeongju, is the other half.

The village and Byeongsan Seowon each publish their own visiting hours, listed below; check them, and the notices on the place pages, before you go.

Andong Hahoe Folk Village visiting hours

The preservation society's 입장시간 안내 table gives both seasons the same opening time and calls the other figure an admission deadline rather than a closing time; it states no closing time anywhere. The village is open every day of the year, and free for everyone on 1 January, on Seollal itself and on Chuseok itself. Free entry also covers Korean nationals aged 65 and over, visitors with a disability (grades 1-3 with one companion), under-sixes with a guardian, national merit and war veterans, basic-livelihood recipients, and Hahoe residents. Andong and Yecheon residents pay 1,000 won as an adult rather than 5,000. Cars cannot enter the village — a barrier went up on 17 August 2021 and electric vehicles were barred with it — and camping, sleeping in a vehicle and cooking are all prohibited under the River Act. There are no restaurants inside the village. The free mask-dance performance runs 14:00 to 15:00: Saturdays and Sundays in January and February, Tuesday to Sunday from March to December, dark on Mondays — though the table the society publishes is headed 2025년도 상설공연 안내, so this year's schedule needs re-checking. Andong City's tourism page prints the same admission times under a different heading.

Source: Hahoe Village Preservation Society — visitor information (the admission table, free parking, mask museum and shuttle, and the 210 city-bus fare) · Sep 10, 2026

Byeongsan Seowon visiting hours

The academy publishes the two bands as summer and winter and names no months at all; Andong City's tourism table reads them as March to October and November to February. Rites are held on the first jeong day of the third and ninth lunar months. Parking is free, on the east side. The whole site is non-smoking, food may not be brought in, and no animals other than guide dogs are admitted. Leaflets in English, Japanese and Chinese are stocked at the museum entrance; guided commentary and interpretation are arranged in advance through Andong City's tourist information office.

Source: Byeongsan Seowon — visitor information · Aug 8, 2026

Worth pairing with

• 

  Byeongsan Seowon

  Byeongsan Seowon, 3 km away, which enshrines Ryu Seong-ryong of this village.

• 

  Buyongdae

  Buyongdae, the cliff across the river, looking back over the village.

• 

  National Museum of Korea

  The National Museum of Korea, for the wider material culture of the period this village lived through.

• 

  Jeonju Hanok Village

  Jeonju Hanok Village, a very different kind of hanok settlement, for comparison.

Frequently asked questions