Seoul Subway Stations Built on History: What Lies Below

In a city that has been a capital for six centuries, and a Baekje royal seat long before that, digging anywhere tends to turn something up. Some of what the builders found is now on display a few steps from the exits. Other stations sit next to places that Korea chose to keep as memorials.

This is the second part of our subway stories series. We have left out stations that are famous for their design, which are in our guide to Seoul’s most beautiful subway stations.

What happened the day Seoul's subway opened?

Seoul Station (Lines 1, 4) and Cheongnyangni

Ground was broken for Line 1 on April 12, 1971. According to the National Archives of Korea, the line opened at 11:00 on August 15, 1974, Liberation Day, running 7.8 km underground from Seoul Station to Cheongnyangni in about 18 minutes.

The celebration never happened as planned. Seoul’s metropolitan media hub records that about an hour before the opening ceremony, a gunman, Mun Se-gwang, tried to shoot President Park Chung-hee at the Liberation Day ceremony at the National Theater on Namsan. First Lady Yuk Young-soo was hit and died. The subway opening went ahead in a brief, subdued ceremony.

Get off and look: the domed 1925 building beside the modern station, once Gyeongseong Station and now Culture Station Seoul 284 (the number is its Historic Site designation). It stopped serving trains in 2004 when KTX arrived and reopened as an arts space in 2011. Its architecture is covered in our beautiful stations guide, and the area around it in our Seoul Station local guide.

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Where did Korea's railways begin?

Line 1 trains run straight onto Korea’s oldest railway lines beyond the city centre, and three stations still keep pieces of that early era.

Noryangjin (Lines 1, 9)

Korea’s first railway, the Gyeongin Line, began running from Noryangjin in September 1899. Seoul’s media hub describes 33.2 km of track to Jemulpo in Incheon, American-built Mogul steam locomotives, a top speed of 30 km/h and a trip of about an hour and a half.

The better story is underground. During flood-prevention works between 2008 and 2011, Dongjak-gu found an old drainage culvert under Noryangjin-ro and the Line 1 tracks. Its oldest section, a horseshoe-shaped channel, dates to the 1890s, with later sections from the 1960s double-tracking of the Gyeongbu Line and the 1970s electrification. After safety work, 92 m of it opened to the public in May 2022.

Get off and look: the Noryangjin underground drainage, 2–3 minutes from Line 9 Exit 7, across from the fish market. It has stairs and a lift; in 2025 Seoul’s media hub listed it as open at all times. Lunch afterward: our Noryangjin fish market guide.

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Sinchon (Gyeongui–Jungang Line)

Not the busy Line 2 station, but the small one on the Gyeongui–Jungang Line. Next to it stands a single-storey station building that opened in December 1920 on the Gyeongui Line, now Registered Cultural Heritage No. 136. Seoul’s media hub calls it the oldest station building in Seoul, five years older than the 1925 Seoul Station. It closed to passengers in 2007, when a shopping complex and a new station building replaced it, and was later reopened as a tourist information centre with old timetables and photographs.

Get off and look: the old station building with its steep, green roof beside the present Sinchon Station. Its use has changed over the years, so treat the interior as a bonus if it is open.

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Yongsan (Line 1, Gyeongui–Jungang Line)

Yongsan grew as a railway and garrison town under Japanese rule, and the railway built its own hospital here in 1928. The red-brick main building, Registered Cultural Heritage No. 428, reopened on March 23, 2022 as the Yongsan History Museum. Its permanent exhibition follows the district from the Joseon period through the Japanese military base, the post-war US garrison and today.

Get off and look: the Yongsan History Museum, a short walk from Yongsan Station (35-29 Hangang-daero 14-gil). Free, 10:00–18:00, closed Mondays. For the station’s mall side, see our Yongsan Station guide.

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What did builders find under Seoul's stations?

Dongdaemun History & Culture Park (Lines 2, 4, 5)

The station is named after a park that was a stadium for most of the 20th century. Gyeongseong Stadium opened on October 15, 1925, later became Seoul Stadium and then Dongdaemun Stadium, and was the home of high-school baseball. Football ended there in 2000 and baseball in 2007.

When the stadium was demolished from May 2008, excavators found what it had been built on: 265 m of Seoul’s city wall, around 40 building sites including the Joseon military office Hadogam, about 1,000 artefacts, and the Igansumun, a two-arched water gate that carried Namsan’s streams out of the city. The Dongdaemun Design Plaza opened on the site on March 21, 2014.

Get off and look: the restored wall and the Igansumun beside DDP, the open-air remains of the excavated buildings, and the Dongdaemun Stadium Memorial Hall. For shopping nearby, see our Dongdaemun shopping guide.

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Gwanghwamun (Line 5)

When excavation began in September 2008 for the first Gwanghwamun Square, archaeologists cut through the layers of the old Six Ministries Street: natural river deposits, layers from before and after the Imjin War of the 1590s, the period when King Gojong rebuilt Gyeongbokgung, and the colonial and modern city on top. Among them were the double-track streetcar rails and sleepers laid in 1928. Seoul displayed soil sections in the underground passage to the square and sent the streetcar remains to the Seoul Museum of History.

Get off and look: the underground Sejong Story and Chungmugong Story exhibitions on B2 below the square (Exits 1, 7 or 8, about 5 minutes). Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:30, Fridays to 21:00; the Sejong section closes at 18:00. Closed Mondays.

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Jonggak (Line 1)

New towers in old Jongno often have to dig through the Joseon city first, and two of them kept what they found. The Gongpyeong Historic Site Museum, opened on September 12, 2018 in the basement of a 26-storey office building, preserves parts of 108 building sites, lanes and over 1,000 everyday objects, with three houses left in place under glass.

A few blocks north, the Insa Urban Relics Exhibition Hall opened in July 2026. Its excavation in 2020–2021 produced metal type in quantity for the first time, including type from King Sejong’s reign, along with parts of the astronomical clock Ilseong jeongsiui and the water clock Jagyeokru. Seoul’s media hub calls it the largest site exhibition hall in central Seoul.

Get off and look: the Gongpyeong museum is at Exit 3-1 (26 Ujeongguk-ro); the Insa hall is in the B1 of G1 Seoul, 18 Jongno 11-gil. Both are free, open 9:00–18:00 and closed Mondays. The station’s sunlit underground garden is in our beautiful stations guide.

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Yeouido (Lines 5, 9)

In 2005, workers building a bus transfer centre in Yeouido broke into a sealed underground room nobody had records for. Seoul believes it was built in the 1970s or earlier as a VIP shelter for Armed Forces Day events on the old 5.16 Plaza next door. It stayed closed for twelve years and opened on October 19, 2017 as SeMA Bunker, a small gallery run by the Seoul Museum of Art. It sits with six other sites in our Cold War fortresses guide.

Get off and look: SeMA Bunker, about 7 minutes from Exit 3, entrance on the pavement in front of IFC Mall. Free, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00.

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Which stations sit on Baekje ruins?

Before Seoul was Joseon’s capital, the kingdom of Baekje ruled from the south bank of the Han River for roughly 500 years, until 475. Its walls were packed earth, not stone, which is why they were easy to miss under farmland and suburbs.

Mongchontoseong (Line 8) and Hanseong Baekje (Line 9)

When construction started on the venues for the 1988 Olympics, Seoul’s media hub notes, an unexpected fortress turned up. Work paused, and the city decided to keep the site and build the park around it. Mongchontoseong is an early Baekje earthen fortress about 2.7 km around; its old moat is now Mongchon Lake, and a 4.2 km trail runs along and across the walls.

Get off and look: the fortress trail, rebuilt wooden palisades and the Hanseong Baekje Museum near Hanseong Baekje Station, which holds finds from Mongchontoseong, Pungnap Toseong and the Seokchon-dong tombs. Food nearby: our Bangi and Olympic Park guide.

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Cheonho (Lines 5, 8)

Pungnap Toseong is the other Baekje wall, and many historians identify it with the royal seat of Hanseong Baekje. In 1997, digging for apartment foundations brought up a mass of palace-grade Baekje artefacts. About 2.7 km of an original 3.5 km survives, and tens of thousands of people now live inside and around it.

Get off and look: the grassy embankment of Pungnap Toseong running between apartment blocks, from Exit 10. Two stops further on Line 8, Amsa has a 6,000-year-old Neolithic village site; both are in our Cheonho and Amsa guide.

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Which stations lead to places of memory?

These sites were not dug up, but their history is the reason the stations matter. They deal with occupation, assassination and torture, so expect quiet visitors and serious exhibitions.

Namyeong (Line 1)

A short walk from Exit 1 is the black-brick building designed by architect Kim Swoo-geun that served as a police anti-communist interrogation centre from 1976. The death of student Park Jong-cheol under interrogation there in 1987 helped spark that year’s June Democratic Uprising. After years as a police human rights centre, it opened as the Democracy Movement Memorial on June 10, 2025.

Get off and look: the memorial, 164 m from Exit 1. Free; the original building (M2) needs an advance reservation. Full visitor details in our Namyeong-dong memorial guide and the wider 1987 June uprising walk.

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Dongnimmun (Line 3)

The station is named after Independence Gate, but most visitors come for the red-brick prison behind it. It opened in 1908 as Gyeongseong Prison, was renamed Seodaemun Prison in 1912, and held independence activists under Japanese rule and political prisoners after it. It closed in 1987 and became a museum in 1998, keeping cell blocks 9 to 12, the panopticon layout and the execution building.

Get off and look: Seodaemun Prison History Hall from Exit 5. Adults 3,000 won; 9:30–18:00 from March to October, 9:30–17:00 from November to February; closed Mondays. Eat afterward at the market next door: our Yeongcheon Market guide.

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Hyochangpark-ap (Line 6, Gyeongui–Jungang Line)

Hyochang Park was a Joseon royal burial ground, the tomb of Crown Prince Munhyo and his mother, until the Japanese moved the tombs to Seosamneung in Goyang and turned the grounds into a park. In 1946, Kim Koo had the remains of independence fighters Yun Bong-gil, Yi Bong-chang and Baek Jeong-gi reburied here. Kim Koo himself was buried here after his assassination in 1949. The park is Historic Site No. 330.

Get off and look: the tombs, the Uiyeolsa shrine and the Baekbeom Kim Koo Museum (opened 2002), about 10 minutes from Exits 1 and 2. The neighbourhood is in our Hyochang and Yongmun guide.

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Jamsil (Lines 2, 8): Samjeondo stele

In early 1637, King Injo went to the Samjeondo ferry crossing and surrendered to the Qing emperor with three bows and nine kowtows. A stele praising the Qing emperor’s merits was raised there the same year. Its later history is a record of Korean feelings about it: pulled down in 1895, set up again under colonial rule, buried in 1956, uncovered by a flood in 1963 and moved several times. In 2010 it was moved back near its original setting by Seokchon Lake. It is Historic Site No. 101.

Get off and look: the stele on the west side of Seokchon Lake. Seoul’s media hub gives Jamsil Station Exit 3 and about 10 minutes on foot.

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All 14 stations at a glance

🗺️ Seoul subway stations with history underneath or next door (checked October 2026)

Station	Line(s)	The history	What you can see	Fee
Seoul Station	1, 4	Line 1 opened here on 1974-08-15	1925 station building, Culture Station Seoul 284	Free
Noryangjin	1, 9	Korea’s first railway, 1899	1890s drainage tunnel, Exit 7 (Line 9)	Free
Sinchon	Gyeongui–Jungang	1920 station building	Old station exterior	Free
Yongsan	1, Gyeongui–Jungang	1928 railway hospital	Yongsan History Museum	Free
Dongdaemun History & Culture Park	2, 4, 5	City wall under a 1925 stadium	Wall, Igansumun, excavated sites	Free
Gwanghwamun	5	1928 streetcar rails found in 2008	Sejong Story and Chungmugong Story	Free
Jonggak	1	Joseon houses and Sejong-era metal type	Gongpyeong and Insa site museums	Free
Yeouido	5, 9	VIP bunker found in 2005	SeMA Bunker, Exit 3	Free
Mongchontoseong	8	Baekje fortress found during Olympic works	Fortress trail, Hanseong Baekje Museum	Free
Cheonho	5, 8	Baekje palace finds in 1997	Pungnap Toseong embankment, Exit 10	Free
Namyeong	1	1976 interrogation centre	Democracy Movement Memorial	Free
Dongnimmun	3	1908 prison	Seodaemun Prison History Hall, Exit 5	3,000 won
Hyochangpark-ap	6, Gyeongui–Jungang	Independence fighters’ tombs	Kim Koo Museum, tombs	Free
Jamsil	2, 8	1637 surrender stele	Samjeondo stele, Exit 3	Free