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Four Major Museums in Seoul, Compared

The National Museum of Korea, the War Memorial, Seodaemun Prison History Hall and Leeum compared on what each holds, where it is, when it closes and what it costs. Three sit in Yongsan and pair easily into one day; only one charges admission.

Published Aug 28, 2026Updated Sep 8, 20264 min read

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The National Museum of Korea's main building seen across its reflecting pond

These four are the exhibition spaces in Seoul that hold a collection and open permanently. Galleries that host shows without owning a collection — Sangsangmadang and Daelim Changgo among them — are covered elsewhere, as are the palaces and the royal tombs, which are a different kind of visit.

Choosing between them is straightforward. Korean history as a whole is the National Museum; the modern era and military history is the War Memorial; walking through a colonial-era site is Seodaemun Prison; art is Leeum. What complicates it afterwards is location and the day of the week, and that is where the four separate.

Three of them are in Yongsan-gu. The National Museum, the War Memorial and Leeum sit inside one district; only Seodaemun Prison History Hall is on the other side of the city. So if you are pairing two into a day, you are choosing among the Yongsan three.

War Memorial of Korea — the facade at the end of a flag-lined approach

d. FUKA (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Seodaemun Prison History Hall — the red-brick cell blocks, barred windows intact

Noh Mun Duek (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

How the four differ

The three in Yongsan are places where a site was chosen and a building raised in order to show things. That is why they cluster in one district, and it is why their operating rules resemble each other.

Seodaemun Prison History Hall is the reverse. It is a prison that opened in 1908, opened again as an exhibition on the same ground, and the cell blocks and the execution building are still standing. Its heritage listing is registered under "the former Seodaemun Prison", which is the same fact stated officially. The ground became the exhibition, which is also why its location was never a choice.

For a visitor that difference shows up in two places. It is the one of the four that charges, and the one whose closing time changes with the season. The other three close at the same hour all year.

Admission, closing days and hours

Attribute	National Museum of Korea	War Memorial of Korea	Seodaemun Prison History Hall	Leeum Museum of Art
Adult admission	Free	Free	KRW 3,000	Permanent free · temporary priced per show
Closed	1 January, Seollal, Chuseok — three days	Mondays — the day after a holiday weekend	Mondays — the next day if it is a holiday	Mondays
Doors	17:30 · 21:00 Wed and Sat	17:40	18:00 Mar–Oct · 17:00 Nov–Feb	18:00
Last entry	17:00 · 20:30 Wed and Sat	17:00	None published	17:30

Four things to check before you go

Seoul's museums are usually summed up as "free, and closed on Mondays". None of these four fits that description. Check the following before you settle on a date.

The National Museum opens on Mondays. It closes three days a year: 1 January, Seollal and Chuseok. What it has instead is a gallery closure that is not a museum closure — the permanent galleries and special exhibition halls 1 and 2 shut on the first Monday of March, June, September and December, and the outdoor grounds stay open on those days. Going then means you can still see the stone pagodas and the garden but not the galleries, so it is worth checking the date if you are visiting in one of those weeks.

The War Memorial closes at 17:40 and stops admitting people at 17:00. The other three close their doors thirty minutes before shutting; this one takes forty, so anyone rounding to "it'll be open till six" and arriving after an afternoon elsewhere is already too late. If it is going into an afternoon, arrive by 16:30 to be safe. There is a second layer to its Monday rule as well — when a public holiday falls in that Monday's weekend, the closure moves to the day after the holiday.

Seodaemun Prison closes an hour earlier in winter. 18:00 from March to October, 17:00 from November to February. It is the one of the four where the season has to be checked, and it publishes no last-entry time at all.

Leeum cannot tell you the price in advance. The permanent collection of older Korean art is free and the temporary exhibitions are charged, but the amount differs per show and no fixed figure is posted. The price depends entirely on what is on, which makes it the one of the four you have to look up first.

If you pair two of the Yongsan three into one day

The National Museum and the War Memorial are in the same district and both are free. Both are also half-day places, so fitting them into one day means neither gets any time. Take the War Memorial first — its 17:00 last entry is the earlier one — and attach the National Museum on a Wednesday or a Saturday evening, when it runs to 21:00. Leeum is the easiest third to add if you only see the permanent collection, but on a Monday the National Museum is the one of the four still open.

In this list

Frequently asked questions

How many of these can I do in one day?

Two is the realistic limit. The National Museum and the War Memorial are each half-day places, so fitting both into one day means neither gets any time. If you do pair them, take the War Memorial first — its last entry is earlier — and attach the National Museum on a Wednesday or Saturday evening, when it runs to 21:00.

If I only visit one, which should it be?

The National Museum of Korea, if you want Korean history as a whole: it is free, it is the largest, and it has almost no day-of-week constraint. If you want something you can only see in Seoul, Seodaemun Prison History Hall — but unlike the other three you are going for the building rather than for what is displayed inside it.

Is anything open on Mondays?

The National Museum is. It closes three days a year: 1 January, Seollal and Chuseok. The other three close on Mondays, with two wrinkles — the War Memorial moves its closure to the day after a holiday weekend, and Seodaemun Prison moves to the next day when that Monday is itself a public holiday.

Do any of them charge admission?

Only Seodaemun Prison History Hall. The National Museum and the War Memorial are free for their permanent exhibitions, and Leeum's permanent collection is free while its temporary shows are priced individually, so the amount cannot be known in advance.

Are they worth it on a rainy day?

All four are indoor, so rain makes little difference. The exception is the War Memorial's outdoor aircraft and tanks, which you will move through quickly if it is wet.

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