Jeonbuk
Honam (Jeolla)
Bernard Gagnon · CC0
Home of bibimbap and the Jeonju hanok village, with the country's finest autumn mountains.
North Jeolla is Korea's rice bowl, and it shows on the table: Jeonju is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, serving bibimbap in brass bowls and makgeolli by the kettle with a spread of side dishes. Beyond Jeonju, the province has Maisan with its eighty hand-stacked stone pagodas, Naejangsan where the autumn colour is the best in the country, and the Gochang dolmen field, the densest on earth.
Best time to visit: April–May and October–November
Local specialties
- Jeonju bibimbap
- Jeonju makgeolli
- Bean sprout soup rice
- Jeonju rice cakes
Places (10)
Jeonju Hanok Village
More than 700 wooden houses gathered in the middle of the city — and the birthplace of bibimbap.
Byeonsanbando National Park
Korea's only national park holding both mountain and sea, with a rock shore layered like stacked books.
Seonunsa Temple & Camellia Forest
Three thousand red camellias around a temple, flowering just as the rest of the country is still cold.
Nambu Market & Youth Night Market, Jeonju
A two-hundred-year-old market whose abandoned upper floor was taken over by young traders.
Gochang Dolmen Site
The densest concentration of dolmens on earth — more than 440 on a single hillside.
Maisan & Tapsa Stone Pagodas
Two peaks shaped like horse's ears, with more than 80 stone pagodas stacked by hand below them.
Gunsan Modern Quarter
A port city with its banks, rice warehouses and a Japanese temple intact — a rarity in Korea.
Jeonju Hyanggyo Confucian School
A Joseon state school with four four-hundred-year-old ginkgos that turn gold every November.
Deogyusan National Park, Muju
A cable car straight up to near a 1,614-metre summit, where ice coats the trees into a white forest in winter.
Naejangsan National Park
Widely held to have Korea's finest autumn colour, with a hundred-metre tunnel of maples.