The Five Joseon Royal Tombs in Seoul, Compared by What Survives at Each

A royal tomb was not a single grave but a whole system of them, and the five show what that system looked like at five different moments.

Jeongneung holds the earliest trace of it. It is the tomb of Queen Sindeok, King Taejo's second queen, and its stone lantern is the oldest stone object at any Joseon royal tomb — made before the dynasty had settled its own form.

Heonneung, from the following reign, carries twice the stone figures of any other royal tomb. It follows the Goryeo precedent of King Gongmin's tomb, so it marks the point where Joseon was still borrowing its form from the dynasty before it. That is what makes it the reference point for statuary: only here can you see how much the later tombs left out.

Taereung and Gangneung are where the system is explained. The Joseon Royal Tombs Exhibition Hall stands inside the walls, and learning the layout of a burial mound and the names of the stone figures there is what makes the other four legible.

The remaining two hold what came after the institution ended. At Uireung the former KCIA auditorium still stands inside the walls — the building where the July 4th North-South Joint Statement was announced, so a Joseon royal tomb and twentieth-century politics share a single boundary wall. At Seonjeongneung the city has simply sat down on top of the tomb: it is the one of the five selling monthly and lunchtime passes, and the people buying them are not travellers but the people who work nearby.

So Jeongneung is where the form began, Heonneung is where it set its standard, Taereung and Gangneung is where it is explained, and Uireung and Seonjeongneung are where another century came to rest on top of it.

The five tombs side by side

They are scattered across Nowon-gu, Seongbuk-gu, Seocho-gu and Gangnam-gu, so a day spent visiting all five is a day spent travelling. The pair worth combining is Jeongneung and Uireung, which share a district; the rest belong in different days and different plans.

The easiest to attach to something else is Seonjeongneung on a Gangnam day. It opens at 06:00 and closes at 21:00 from March to October, so it fits either end of whatever else you are doing.