Inside Jeonju Hanok Village, where more than 700 traditional houses fill the old town

Curved tiled roofs stretch out in every direction, visitors in silk hanbok drift down the lanes, and a red-brick cathedral rises among the wooden houses. South Korea’s largest hanok village is a working neighbourhood with a royal past, and it rewards anyone who slows down long enough to look past the crowds.

Jeonju was one of the stops that surprised me most on my trip around South Korea in October. I came for the food, which lived up to every promise (this is where bibimbap was born, after all), but I left thinking about the lanes, the shrines and the crafts just as much.

Jeonju Hanok Village is the heart of it all. It’s hugely popular with Korean holidaymakers as well as visitors from abroad, and on a busy afternoon the main streets feel more like a festival than a historic district. Step one lane back, though, and you’ll find quiet courtyards, tea houses and centuries-old ginkgo trees.

This guide covers what to see, whether to rent a hanbok, how to make your own moju, when the village is at its liveliest and how to get there from Seoul.

Jeonju Hanok Village at a glance

• Where: Wansan-gu, in the centre of Jeonju, about 200 km south of Seoul. The visitor address is 99 Girin-daero.
• Entry: the village itself is free and open around the clock. Gyeonggijeon Shrine costs adult visitors 3,000 won (about £1.70).
• How long: half a day covers the main sights; a full day leaves time for a class and a long lunch.
• Best time: spring and autumn for the weather, weekday mornings for fewer people.
• Getting there: the KTX from Seoul takes about an hour and three quarters.
• Good to know: families still live in the village, so talk quietly in the side lanes and stay out of private courtyards.

Why this village is worth the trip

There are hanok villages all over South Korea, from Bukchon in Seoul to Hahoe near Andong, but Jeonju’s is the biggest. More than 700 traditional houses, with heavy tiled roofs that curl up at the corners, fill the neighbourhoods of Gyo-dong and Pungnam-dong.

What makes it different from a folk museum is that it’s still a living neighbourhood. Families live in some of the houses, others have become guesthouses, cafés, craft workshops and small museums, and the whole district sits right in the middle of a modern city. Cittaslow, the international slow city movement, named it a slow city in 2010 for the way it keeps local traditions, food and craft alive.

It’s also a rare chance to see so many of the city’s historic sights within a few minutes’ walk of each other: a royal shrine, a Confucian school, a cathedral built on a martyrs’ execution ground, the old south gate of the city and a hilltop pavilion with a view over all of it.

Start at Gyeonggijeon Shrine

The hanok village grew up around this walled royal shrine, so it’s the natural place to begin. King Taejo, who founded the Joseon dynasty in 1392, came from a Jeonju family, and in 1410 his son had this shrine built to keep his royal portrait. Japanese invaders destroyed it during the Imjin War at the end of the 16th century, and it was rebuilt in 1614.

The portrait itself is a national treasure. You’ll find it in the main hall behind its curtains, with more royal portraits and the history of how they were made and protected in the museum next door. The grounds are calm and leafy, a bamboo grove runs along one side, and the painted eaves are worth a long look.

I’d give it more time than you think you need. It’s a peaceful spot to wander between the halls, and it’s one of the prettiest backdrops in town if you’re wearing a hanbok.

Rent a hanbok (or don’t)

Walk through the village on any day of the week and you’ll see dozens of people in hanbok, the traditional Korean dress: full, high-waisted skirts and short jackets for women, loose trousers and a longer coat for men. Historically the colours, fabric and patterns showed your status. Today K-dramas and social media have made hiring one for a few hours a must for many visitors.

I rented one here, and I’ll be honest: I found the whole thing awkward. Walking around in another culture’s traditional dress raises the question of whether you’re appreciating that culture or appropriating it, and I couldn’t shake that the whole time I was wearing it. That said, it did give me a different way of seeing the village, and plenty of Koreans rent one for exactly the same reason. Is it essential? Not at all. It’s a decision only you can make, and for me, once was plenty.

If you do want to try it, rental shops line the main streets around Gyeonggijeon. At Hanboknam, one of the best known, a basic hanbok costs from 10,000 won (about £6) for an hour and a half, themed outfits from 20,000 won and premium silk ones with hair and accessories from 55,000 won. Simple hair styling is free, shoes, bags and hairpins cost a few thousand won extra, and you’ll need your passport as ID. Shops open from about 9.30am, and the last rentals go out at around 6pm. If you’d rather have it arranged for you, this hanbok experience with a chocolate pie-making class pairs a rental with a session making Jeonju’s famous chocolate pies.

Make your own moju

Moju is Jeonju’s own drink: makgeolli (rice wine) slowly simmered with cinnamon, ginger, jujube and other herbs and spices until it becomes a sweet, warming, low-alcohol tonic. Locals traditionally drink it as a hangover cure, often alongside the city’s famous bean sprout soup.

A moju class was one of my favourite things to do in the city. I’d never tasted it before, and it was fascinating to watch a handful of dried ingredients turn into the finished drink. There were three recipes to choose from, so I could tailor my moju to my taste, and the best part was getting to drink the result. It was genuinely tasty.

See Jeondong Cathedral

A Romanesque cathedral in red brick is the last thing you expect among the hanok, which is exactly why it stops people in their tracks. Jeondong Cathedral was begun in 1908 under a French priest, Xavier Baudounet, and finished in 1914, and it was the first Romanesque church in the Honam region of southwest Korea.

The site is the reason it was built. In 1791 two Catholic converts from the area, Paul Yun Ji-chung and James Kwon Sang-yeon, were executed here outside the city’s south gate for refusing to perform Confucian ancestral rites. They were the first Catholic martyrs in Korea, and Pope Francis beatified them in 2014. Stones from the demolished city wall beside Pungnammun gate went into the cathedral’s foundations.

Visitors can go inside when no Mass is being said, and entry is free. Pungnammun, the only one of the four gates of old Jeonju still standing, is a couple of minutes’ walk away.

Climb to Omokdae for the rooftop view

From street level the village is all walls and gateways. To see the pattern of the rooftops, climb the short path to Omokdae, a pavilion on a small hill on the eastern edge of the village.

The spot has royal connections too. In 1380, before he founded the Joseon dynasty, the general Yi Seong-gye stopped here on his way home from defeating Japanese raiders and held a victory feast with his family. Five centuries later, Emperor Gojong had a stone tablet carved with his own handwriting to mark the place. Neighbouring Imokdae marks the land where Yi’s ancestors lived, and it’s linked to Omokdae by a footbridge over the road.

Go in the late afternoon, when the light softens over the tiles and the hills behind the city.

Visit Jeonju Hyanggyo, the old Confucian school

Hyanggyo were the state-run Confucian schools of the Joseon era, part school and part shrine to Confucius and his followers. Jeonju’s was first built in the 14th century and moved more than once before it settled on its current site, at the southern end of the village, in 1603.

It’s a lovely, unhurried place, with tiled halls arranged around a courtyard shaded by huge ginkgo trees that are around 400 years old. In autumn their leaves turn bright gold. Entry is free, and it’s open from 10am to 6pm. My guide to Jeonju has more on the school and on the rest of the city beyond the village, from paper-making to the lakeside library at Deokjin Park.

Catch the village in festival mode

Festivals are when the hanok village really comes alive, and it was in a festive mood when I visited in October. It’s a place that’s already steeped in tradition, and a festival brings all of that to the surface.

• Jeonju International Film Festival: the city’s biggest event, running for ten days from late April into May. The 2026 festival, the 27th, ran from 29 April to 8 May and showed 237 films from 54 countries. Book your room early if your dates overlap.
• Jeonju National Heritage Night Tour: evening openings of Gyeonggijeon and other heritage sites, with performances and night walks around the village, held in spring and again in autumn (2 and 3 October in 2026).
• Jeonju Bibimbap Festival: an autumn celebration of the city’s most famous dish. In 2026 it moved to Deokjin Park, north of the village, and ran from 2 to 4 October.
• Jeonju International Hanji Industry Expo: a showcase of the city’s traditional mulberry paper, held in October at the Korea Traditional Culture Center on the edge of the village.

Smaller events run through the year, such as the night banquets held in the courtyard of the Wanpanbon Culture Center, so check the city’s tourism listings before you go.

Eat your way around the village

UNESCO named Jeonju a City of Gastronomy in 2012, and the village is a good place to start eating. Jeonju-style bibimbap, served in a hot stone or brass bowl with beef, sprouts and a raw egg yolk, is on menus all around Gyeonggijeon. Between meals, PNB Pungnyeon Bakery, which has been baking in the city since the 1950s, is famous for its handmade chocolate pies, and its main shop on Paldal-ro is a short walk from the village. For something slower, Gyodong Dawon, a tea house in an old hanok on Eunhaeng-ro, serves Korean and Chinese teas with rice cakes and honey cookies at low tables. For dinner, the pork grill restaurants and bibimbap specialists in the guide linked above are a short taxi ride away.

How the village came to be

Jeonju is an ancient city. It was the capital of Hubaekje, one of the Later Three Kingdoms, in the early 10th century, and as the ancestral home of the royal Yi family it carried huge prestige throughout the Joseon dynasty.

The houses you see now are much younger than the shrine at their centre. After the old city wall was pulled down at the start of the 20th century, and Japanese settlers moved into the centre during the occupation, Korean families built hanok in the neighbourhoods to the east, most of them in the first half of the 20th century. Building in the traditional style was a quiet statement of identity at a time when it was under pressure.

A hanok is built from timber beams on a stone base, with clay walls, paper-screened windows and, here, heavy tiled roofs (giwa) that sweep up at the corners. Larger houses were split into separate quarters: the sarangchae for the men of the family and their guests, and the anchae for the women. Most clever of all is the ondol, an underfloor heating system that carries the heat of a fire through flues beneath stone slabs, which is why Koreans traditionally sat and slept on the floor.

Before you go

• Pick up a map. The tourist information centre in the village has free maps in English and can tell you what’s on during your visit.
• Bring some cash. Most shops and restaurants take cards, but small stalls and some rental shops prefer cash.
• Stay the night if you can. Many of the hanok are guesthouses, where you sleep on a heated floor, and staying over lets you see the lanes after the day-trippers have gone.
• Download Naver Map or KakaoMap. Google Maps doesn’t give reliable walking or transit directions in South Korea.

Getting to Jeonju Hanok Village

• By KTX: high-speed trains run from Seoul’s Yongsan Station to Jeonju in about an hour and three quarters, with standard seats from about 34,000 won (about £19). I took the KTX between Jeonju and Seoul and loved it: fast, comfortable and with great views of the countryside. First class costs around 48,000 won (about £27), only about £8 more, and gets you wider seats and more legroom, which I’d say is worth it.
• By bus: express buses leave Seoul’s Central City Terminal about every 20 minutes and take around two and a half hours to Jeonju Express Bus Terminal.
• From the station or terminal: Jeonju Station is about 5 km from the village, so a taxi (about 15 minutes) is the easiest way in, and city buses run there too. The express bus terminal is closer, about 10 minutes by taxi.
• On a tour: if you’d rather not plan the logistics, this day trip to Jeonju Hanok Village from Seoul covers the transport and the main sights.
• From elsewhere: if you’re coming from Busan, the express bus is simpler than the train, which needs at least one change.

Map

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