Deoksugung and Jeong-dong: A Walk Through Korea's Short-Lived Empire

1897: why an emperor chose a cramped palace

Deoksugung (덕수궁) began as an emergency. In 1593, with the capital's palaces burned during the Japanese invasion, King Seonjo held court in the private manor of Grand Prince Wolsan, and in 1611 King Gwanghae made it an official palace named Gyeongungung (경운궁). For almost three centuries afterward it was a minor palace. What made it matter was the neighborhood that grew up around it in the 1880s and 1890s, when Western legations and missions settled in Jeong-dong (정동).

On February 11, 1896, months after the assassination of his queen, King Gojong slipped away to the Russian legation on the hill behind the palace and governed from there for a year. On February 20, 1897 he returned not to Gyeongbokgung but to Gyeongungung, and later that year he proclaimed the Korean Empire, 대한제국 (Daehan Jeguk), with himself as emperor. Our reading: a palace surrounded by foreign legations was a choice as much as a necessity, a court placing itself in full view of the powers it hoped would guarantee its independence.

The empire lasted 13 years. A great fire destroyed many buildings in 1904; Japan forced Gojong to abdicate in 1907, after which the palace was renamed Deoksugung; and under colonial rule from 1910 it shrank, lost most of its halls and was folded into a public park project. What survives is a fragment, which is why the streets outside the walls are as much a part of this story as the palace itself.

Daehanmun and Junghwajeon: the ceremonial front

You enter through Daehanmun (대한문), the main gate facing City Hall. It was called Daeanmun until repairs in 1906 gave it its present name. In front of it, the Seoul Metropolitan Government stages a Royal Guard Changing Ceremony at 11:00 and 14:00 every day except Monday. Each performance lasts about 25 minutes, costs nothing, takes place outside the ticket gate and can be cancelled in bad weather, so arrive ten minutes early for a clear view from the plaza side.

Inside, a short path leads to Junghwajeon (중화전), the throne hall. It went up in 1902 as a two-story building modeled on Changdeokgung's throne hall, burned in the 1904 fire and was rebuilt as the single-story hall you see by 1906. Compare it with Gyeongbokgung's throne hall if you have seen that one: a lower roof in a tighter courtyard, built in a hurry by a court with little money and less room. The rank stones in the courtyard still mark where officials stood by grade.

Behind it, Jeukjodang (즉조당) served as the palace's main hall before Junghwajeon existed, and Hamnyeongjeon (함녕전) was Gojong's bedchamber. He died there on January 21, 1919, more than a decade after losing his throne. These traditional halls are modest, and their interest lies in what they witnessed rather than in their carpentry, so a few minutes at each is enough unless you are following a guide.

Seokjojeon, Jeonggwanheon and the empire's Western face

The building that stops most visitors is Seokjojeon (석조전), a neoclassical stone hall designed by a British architect named Harding, begun in 1900 and finished in 1910, the year the empire ended. Gojong used it as an office and audience hall. In 1946 and 1947 it hosted the US–Soviet Joint Commission that met over Korea's future, and since 2014 it has housed the Daehan Empire History Museum (대한제국역사관).

Jeonggwanheon (정관헌), behind Hamnyeongjeon, is a pavilion that wraps a Korean-style building in a Western colonnade, with decorative railings of deer and pine motifs between slender columns. Guides like to say that Gojong drank coffee here with foreign diplomats; treat that as a popular story rather than documented fact. The building's real interest is how openly it mixes two architectural vocabularies. Nearby, Dondeokjeon (돈덕전), a rebuilt Western-style reception hall, now holds rotating exhibitions.

These interiors keep shorter hours than the grounds. Seokjojeon opens from 09:30 to 17:30 and can be entered only on a guided session, the last at 16:30. Dondeokjeon opens from 09:00 to 17:30, with last entry at 17:00, and it closes between exhibitions, so check the Deoksugung notice board at royal.khs.go.kr if it is the reason for your visit. After 17:30, plan on the grounds and on seeing these buildings from outside.

Tickets, free days and the two English tours

Deoksugung opens from 09:00 to 21:00 every day except Monday, with last entry at 20:00. When a Monday is a public holiday the palace opens and closes on the next non-holiday instead. Adults aged 19 to 64 pay 1,000 won. Foreign visitors aged 18 and under or 65 and over enter free with proof of age, and so does anyone in qualifying hanbok. Every Wednesday is a free Culture Day, and in 2026 the heritage service made entry free for everyone from October 29 to November 15.

Two English tours run, and they are separate services. The free palace commentary starts at 10:45 and 13:30 from Tuesday to Sunday, takes about 45 minutes and needs no booking for groups of fewer than ten; meet at the information map about 10 meters inside Daehanmun. The Seokjojeon interior tour in English runs at 11:50 and 14:50. Online booking opens a week ahead, and both English sessions also take foreign visitors first come at the museum's information desk, up to 20 people, with a passport or alien registration card.

Watch two clashes. The 10:45 palace tour overlaps the 11:00 guard ceremony, so choose one or take the 13:30 tour. And Seokjojeon tours can be restricted from 13:30 to 16:30 on the last Wednesday of each month, when the hall hosts concerts. Entry to each session opens three minutes before it starts, and latecomers can be refused.

The stone-wall road and its unlucky reputation

Back outside Daehanmun, face the gate and follow the wall to your left along Deoksugung-gil (덕수궁길), the road that runs beside the palace's stone wall. Seoul's tourism office points out that it is a one-way street that winds deliberately to slow traffic, with the roadway and the pavement at the same height, which is why it feels like a pedestrian lane even though cars still use it. In autumn its ginkgo trees turn yellow against the gray stone. Keep to the edge when you stop for photographs.

Seoul residents joke that couples who walk this road together will break up. The usual explanation points to the courts that once stood here: the Gyeongseong Family Court stood beside the road, on the site of today's Seoul City Hall annex, and the old Supreme Court building, now the Seoul Museum of Art, stood just above it. The story goes that for decades couples on their way to a divorce hearing walked exactly this route.

The full wall road runs about 1,100 meters around the palace, and for decades part of it was blocked by the British Embassy, which has held its site since 1883; Seoul began reopening that stretch in 2017. For this walk you need only the open section from Daehanmun past the art museum to the small rotary where Jeongdong-gil (정동길) begins. From there Jeongdong-gil winds on between churches, schools and embassies.

Jungmyeongjeon, where the empire signed away its diplomacy

Up a short lane off Jeongdong-gil stands Jungmyeongjeon (중명전), a brick building with arcaded verandas that began as an imperial library called Suokheon (수옥헌). After the 1904 fire Gojong moved in, and in 1905 it was renamed Jungmyeongjeon. On November 17, 1905, under Japanese coercion, the treaty that stripped Korea of its diplomatic rights was signed here, the agreement Koreans call the Eulsa Treaty (을사늑약), using a word that marks it as forced.

In 1907 Gojong sent envoys from here in secret to the peace conference at The Hague to protest the treaty, and Japan used the mission as its pretext to force his abdication. The building reopened to the public in 2010 after restoration. It opens from 09:30 to 17:30, with last entry at 17:00, and it is small enough to see in half an hour. Search 중명전 in Naver Map or Kakao Map, because the lane entrance is easy to walk past.

If you visit only one building outside the palace walls, make it this one. Seokjojeon shows the empire as it wanted to be seen, a modern state receiving guests in a stone hall; Jungmyeongjeon is where that image failed. Seeing both on the same afternoon is the clearest history lesson Jeong-dong offers, and it explains why Koreans still treat this neighborhood as a place of memory rather than simply a pretty street.

Gojong's Road and the Russian legation tower

From the stone-wall road, a gated lane of a little over 100 meters, Gojong's Road (고종의 길), climbs toward Jeong-dong Park. Seoul laid it out for the 120th anniversary of the 1896 refuge, which fell in 2016, and opened it in 2018. It runs between high walls, so walk it in daylight; if it is closed when you arrive, reach the park from Jeongdong-gil instead.

At the top, Jeong-dong Park holds what is left of the Russian legation: a white three-story tower on a small rise. The main building was destroyed during the Korean War. This is where Gojong lived and governed from February 1896 to February 1897, and it was from here that he returned to Gyeongungung to remake it as an imperial palace. In a map app, search 정동공원 (Jeong-dong Park) or 구 러시아공사관 (former Russian legation).

The tower itself takes five minutes. The point of the detour is to stand where a king spent a year as a guest of a foreign legation, a few hundred meters from the palace he then chose to rebuild. It makes the geography of the empire concrete in a way no museum panel does, and it is free and nearly always quiet.

A red-brick church, a mission school and a courthouse turned museum

Jeongdong First Methodist Church (정동제일교회) was founded in 1885. Its red-brick Bethel Chapel, dedicated on December 26, 1897, is a simplified Gothic building that was enlarged in 1916 and 1926, wrecked in the Korean War and restored, and it is designated Historic Site No. 256. Korea's first pipe organ was installed inside. It is a working church, so look in quietly on a weekday and leave Sunday mornings to its congregation.

Nearby, the red-brick Appenzeller/Noble Memorial Museum occupies a 1916 building that was the east hall of Paichai Hakdang (배재학당), the school the American Methodist missionary Henry Appenzeller started in 1885. Along Jeongdong-gil, the National Jeongdong Theater (국립정동극장), opened in 1995, recalls Wongaksa, often described as Korea's first modern theater; our traditional performances guide covers its programs.

Up a short slope from the wall road, the Seoul Museum of Art (서울시립미술관) keeps the arched Renaissance-style facade of the 1928 Gyeongseong Courthouse, later home to Korea's Supreme Court for almost 50 years, in front of a modern gallery. Admission is free except for special exhibitions. It opens 10:00 to 20:00 from Tuesday to Thursday, to 21:00 on Fridays, and to 19:00 in summer or 18:00 in winter on weekends and holidays, and it closes on Mondays and January 1.

For a view down onto the palace roofs, the Jeong-dong Observatory is on the 13th floor of the Seoul City Hall Seosomun Building beside the palace; take elevator No. 3. The city lists it as open from 13:30 to 17:30 on weekdays and from 09:00 to 17:30 at weekends. The same city page lists a two-hour guided Jeong-dong walk that starts at the Deoksugung ticket booth and ends at Hwangudan (환구단), the imperial altar near City Hall.

A walking order, from the 11:00 ceremony to dusk

This sequence fits Tuesday to Sunday and takes about four hours plus lunch. 10:45: arrive at Daehanmun from City Hall Station on Lines 1 and 2 and find a spot for the 11:00 guard ceremony. 11:30: buy a ticket, walk to Junghwajeon and the halls behind it, and register at Seokjojeon's information desk for the 11:50 English session, or for 14:50 if 11:50 is full. 12:45: Jeonggwanheon, then out through Daehanmun for lunch near City Hall.

14:00: walk the stone-wall road, step up to the Seoul Museum of Art for half an hour, then continue to the rotary and along Jeongdong-gil past the Methodist church and the Paichai building. 15:15: Jungmyeongjeon. 15:45: Jeong-dong Park and the Russian legation tower, then down Gojong's Road to the wall road. 16:30: on a weekday, go up to the Jeong-dong Observatory before it closes at 17:30 for the view back over the palace.

If you booked the 14:50 Seokjojeon session instead, swap the order: walk Jeong-dong in the late morning after the ceremony and return to the palace at 14:30. On a Monday the palace, the guard ceremony and the art museum are all off, so walk only the outside route and come back another day for the halls. In the evening Deoksugung is at its calmest, and its grounds stay open until 21:00.