The National Museum of Korea: A Museum That Kept Moving

If you have one museum day in Korea, this is the one that makes everything else legible. Walk its permanent galleries in order and you get the sequence — prehistory, the Three Kingdoms, Unified Silla, Goryeo, Joseon, the modern period — as a series of rooms you can physically move through.

But there is a second reason to come, and it is the one this article is about. The museum's own history is modern Korean history. It has been housed in two palaces, run by a colonial government, bombed, evacuated to Busan, and moved six times. Its address changed every time the country did.

Opening hours, galleries and access are on the museum's own place page. This article is about where the collection has been, and why that matters to what you see.

At a glance

It started inside a palace
The museum traces its origin to the Yi Royal Family Museum, founded inside Changgyeonggung in September 1908.
Colonial museum, 1915
After 1910 the Government-General built a museum inside Gyeongbokgung, which opened in December 1915.
20,000 objects to Busan
During the Korean War, important artefacts were evacuated to Busan in an emergency operation after Chinese intervention.
Yongsan since 2005
The present building is the museum's most recent address, after Gyeongbokgung, Busan, Namsan, Deoksugung and Gyeongbokgung again.

A palace museum, then a colonial one

The institution begins before the country lost its sovereignty, and then changes hands.

The museum started from the Yi Royal Family Museum, founded inside Changgyeonggung in September 1908, which collected artworks with the financial backing of the royal household.

After the annexation of 1910, the Government-General built a new museum building inside Gyeongbokgung and opened it in December 1915 as the Government-General Museum. Besides purchases, it collected and displayed buried heritage recovered through archaeological surveys, along with objects deposited by temples.

Read that alongside Gyeongbokgung, where the same decades appear as demolition: the palace was being cleared while a museum was being built inside it. The wider administration is in Korea under Japanese rule.

The branch network grew the same way. A display hall in Gyeongju, run by a local antiquities preservation society since 1915, was absorbed as the Government-General Museum's Gyeongju branch in 1926. Exhibition halls in Buyeo and Gongju were absorbed as branches in 1939 and 1940. By liberation there were three branches.

That detail matters for a trip. Gyeongju is Silla, Buyeo and Gongju are Baekje — the branch map is the archaeology of the peninsula, and it is why the objects from those regions are split between local museums and this one.

1945, and then the war

The museum, which had been monopolised by Japanese staff, was handed over in September 1945 after liberation and reorganised as the National Museum, with the three regional branches following. Liberation itself is in liberation and modern Korea.

Then the Korean War nearly ended it.

The collection escaped being taken north. But the Gyeongbokgung halls where the objects were stored were partly bombed, and several thousand items were lost.

After Seoul was retaken on 28 September, the war turned again with Chinese intervention, and the museum began an urgent evacuation: some 20,000 important cultural properties were moved to Busan, where a temporary office was set up.

This is worth carrying through the galleries. Many of the objects in front of you spent part of the 1950s in crates in Busan. The city's role as the wartime refuge is why the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall exists there.

Six addresses

The return to Seoul was not the end of the moving.

With the return of the government to Seoul, a temporary headquarters was set up at the site of the Folk Museum on Namsan, and then the museum repaired Deoksugung's Seokjojeon and moved in, which is when it began to recover the functions that had been paralysed. Seokjojeon is the Western-style stone hall built in the Deoksugung precinct.

In 1969 the Deoksugung Art Museum was merged into the National Museum, unifying two display facilities and substantially enlarging the holdings.

In August 1972 the museum built and moved into a new building with modern facilities inside Gyeongbokgung, and changed its name to the National Museum of Korea.

And in 2005 it moved to Yongsan, where it is now.

Put the addresses in a line and you have the century: a palace under the empire, a palace under colonial rule, a wartime refuge, a Western stone hall, a palace again, and finally a purpose-built museum on its own ground.

How to use it as an introduction to Korean history

The galleries follow the same sequence this guide does, which makes the museum the most efficient first day of a history-minded trip.

Prehistory and antiquity — the ground covered by Gojoseon and the Three Kingdoms.
Unified Silla — the period whose surviving architecture is mostly in Gyeongju, discussed in Unified Silla and Korean Buddhism.
Goryeo — the dynasty whose buildings largely did not survive, which is exactly why the museum matters for it. See Goryeo.
Joseon and after — the dynasty you can still walk through in Seoul's palaces, set out in the Joseon overview.

The whole arc in one page is a brief history of Korea.

Go on your first day rather than your last. Almost every historical site elsewhere in this guide is a place with its objects removed — palaces emptied, temple sites reduced to foundations, tombs excavated. Seeing the objects first means the empty sites later stop reading as empty. The museum is the other half of the ruins.

Worth pairing with

Frequently asked questions

How old is the museum?

It traces its origin to the Yi Royal Family Museum, founded inside Changgyeonggung in September 1908. The colonial Government-General Museum inside Gyeongbokgung opened in December 1915, and the institution was handed over and reorganised as the National Museum in September 1945.

Was the collection damaged in the Korean War?

Yes. The collection escaped being taken north, but the Gyeongbokgung halls storing it were partly bombed and several thousand items were lost. After Chinese intervention some 20,000 important cultural properties were urgently evacuated to Busan.

Why has the museum moved so many times?

Its addresses follow the country's history: Changgyeonggung from 1908, Gyeongbokgung from 1915, Busan during the war, a temporary base on Namsan, Deoksugung's Seokjojeon, a new building inside Gyeongbokgung in August 1972 — when it took its present name — and Yongsan from 2005.

Should I visit this or a regional museum?

Both, if the trip allows. The Gyeongju, Buyeo and Gongju halls were absorbed as branches in 1926, 1939 and 1940, and Silla and Baekje material is divided between those regions and Seoul.

When in a trip is the best time to come?

Early. Most historical sites in Korea are places whose objects have been removed to museums, so seeing the objects first makes the sites more readable afterwards.