Jongmyo Shrine

On first glance, it may appear like there's not much to see at Jongmyo Shrine. Its main raison d'être is to hold the spirit tablets of the Joseon kings and queens - but these are all hidden away in spirit chambers in the main buildings where no tourists will ever see them. On top of that, the architecture is much more muted than the nearby royal palaces, so it's less of a spectacle. And, at the time of my visit, the main hall (Jeongjeon) was covered by hoardings while it undergoes a five-year renovation (due to finish in 2025).

However, as I learned more about the story of the shrine, I gained a new appreciation for its heritage and how it plays a part in Korean culture. As the guide described it, Jongmyo Shrine is "a symbol of the Korean people’s thought". The Confucian principles at the shrine's core are quite interesting and seeing a place where they are put into action is part of exploring the country's guiding philosophy.

There's also something quite beautiful about the architecture once you accept that is is deliberately less flashy, presenting a more respectful design for a place that honours the dead. The landscaping of the parklands in the shrine creates a tranquil setting away from the bustle of the city.

If you visit on a weekend, you can wander around at your own pace. On a weekday, you need to take a tour, which lasts for about an hour …

I visited here in late 2007.

The Jongmyo Shrine grounds is literally across the street from the Changdeok Palace compound. Like the Changdeok Palace, it suffers from a lack of fixtures and artifacts. Unlike the Changdeok Palace, you can enter the grounds with a ticket and stroll around the facilities to your heart’s content as a guide is not required.

Read more about the Jongmyo Shrine on my website.

I visited this WHS in May 2017 using the combination ticket to 4 Palaces and this shrine. Unlike most sites in South Korea, it is closed on Tuesdays. Having done some reading prior to visiting the site and also by attentively reading the superb information boards on site, I opted to visit on a Saturday to be able to visit at leisure. Even though I visited the site when it's truly active with the Royal Culture Festival taking place during the first week of May, the crowds were not that huge and the nighttime performance (entrance with prior registration) with royal ancestral ritual music was a truly unexpected highlight.

Jongmyo Shrine is the supreme shrine of the state where the tablets of royal ancestors (top right photo) are enshrined and memorial services are performed for deceased kings and queens. The construction of Jongmyo predates that of the main palace of Seoul, Gyeongbokgung. According to Confucian philosophy and the concepts of geomancy, it was built on the east side of the royal palace, while the Sajik Shrine, where ritual services for the gods of earth and crops were performed, was built on the west side.

Several kings and queens were enshrined with the passage of time, making it necessary to expand to what we see today. When a king or queen died, mourning at the palace would continue for 3 whole years! After that period of mourning, memorial tablets of the deceased were moved to Jongmyo and enshrined in Jeongjeon (top …

The 7 reviews to date of the Jongmyo Shrine are fairly “mixed” in terms of the degree of “value” which people felt they had obtained from their visit. One issue seems to be how best to “understand” and appreciate the site. We visited on a Saturday – the only day when visitors are allowed to wonder around unguided. It is perhaps worth highlighting here that Jongmyo has Tuesday as its closing day and is therefore a useful site for visiting on Mondays when the other WHS in/around Seoul are closed (The National and Palace Museums are also open then). Others have praised the guided aspect, though I must say that we found our guided tour of the Huwon at Changdeokgung something of a disappointment - too many people and not enough “meat” in the explanations (not unreasonable given the range of visitors and their interests - or lack thereof!), too long in some places and not enough in others, no ability to go back and re-look etc etc – we are not good “tour group” material! Whether we “missed out” regarding a Jongmyo tour we will, of course, never know (though I note that there are 2 different tour routes according to whether there are over or under 200 people! We only had 100 for the Huwon tour.)

In fact Jongmyo contains a full range of the usual bilingual metal signs we grew to know and love around Korea and they are excellently detailed (Nowadays I always photo such signs …

Jongmyo Shrine is a Confucian sanctuary dedicated to the Joseon dynasty dead members. It was built in 1394 by king Taejo and is then thought to be the oldest Confucian sanctuary. It was destroyed by the Japanese and rebuilt in 1601. This one is still in place. It used to welcome some of the Tripitaka Koreana, wooden tablets that are now within the Haiensa temple, as well registered as WHS.

The main distinctive element is the great square in front of the building, 150 meters long and 100 meters width. The complex is still used today for ritual ceremonies.

This site is really intersting for its architecture and its symbolism. Located in the center of Seoul, you can easily get there by subway, the syop is Jongno 3 ga on the line 1.

From reading the other reviews it seems there is a bit of a split in people’s views of this shrine. I will say I am in the baffled camp. It is a pretty austere site to get a grip on.

Essentially it is a walled park with two large rectangular courtyards lined with bulky wooden buildings fronted with closed doors on one side. It isn’t really an easily accessible site, which is why I was glad to see that access to this site is now by guided tour only (about every 2 hours in English). I think this is actually good as the guide was able to try and make some sense of the Confucian concepts behind the function of the shrine. That being said; I don’t think I have ever seen people look as bored as many did on my tour. It wasn’t the fault of the guide who did a sterling job considering how alien the concepts can be to many westerners.

I was sort of looking forward to seeing the architecture of the site. I am a big fan of the modern architect Mies van der Rohe who is famous for stating “Less is more”; as such I have a fairly high tolerance for buildings that others may see as monotonous, but however hard I tried I still didn’t get much from the structures, and perhaps that would be missing the point anyway.

The site does tie in well with Seoul’s other World Heritage Sites as they …

What makes Jongmyo Shrine special is it's unique architecture and peacefulness. The site is a splendid place to take a walk, or as a quite spot for reflection. This site will not amaze you, but be patient and relax and you can certainly appreciate this beautiful shrine.

Update: I revisited Jongmyo in 2016 to improve my pictures and better appreciate this quite WHS. My second visit was rewarded with a serene environment and lush green landscapes in the center of old Seoul. A pleasant 45 minutes deviation from my rather full itinerary. I've noticed some nice changes to the surrounding property since 2008. The entrance has been expanded forming a "green axis" that is aimed toward connecting Jongmyo Shrine with Namsan Park. I am excited by this development. In the years to come, Seoul City Wall, Changdeokgung Palace, Jongmyo Shrine, Namsan Park, Yongsan, and the Han River will all be connected. It is astonishing that this "green axis" will happen in a city of 10 million.

Unlike the other posters, I don't think this place is boring at all! I really like it, and is one of my favourite places in Seoul. It is beautifully serene and peaceful (most of the time). It is also only about $1 to get it, making it one of the cheaper WHSs that I've been to. Korea has a commendable policy on entry fees.

The royal ancestral shrine of Jongmyo is a simple but serene wooden complex housing spirit tablets of kings and queens of Joseon dynasty who ruled Korea for more than 500 years in the city center of Seoul. The complex is quite unique in East Asia where normally the spirit tablets are kept in a small shrine in the house or palace in case of royalties, but Jongmyo was built apart from the palace which makes it different from other royal Confucius shrines in China. However, Jongmyo is not an active shrine and most of the times are closed making it just big boring buildings in the forest-liked park with few visitors, a really contrast to lively Japanese royal shrines in Tokyo or Kyoto.

The royal ceremony in Jongmyo called Jongmyo Daeje, a performance of ritual, music and dance, is considered the only existing royal Confucius ceremony that still practicing in modern time recognized by UNESCO as world intangible cultural asset, so Jongmyo is few places on earth holding two statuses from UNESCO world heritage program.

In 2008, I chose to visit Jongmyo on the first Sunday of May, the only time of the year when Jongmyo is backed to its glory by the performance of Jongmyo Daeje. The whole park is really crowded with thousands of spectators and lots of people dressed in ancient Korean ceremonial robes, a real feast of sight. I decided to see the morning ceremony at Yeongnyeongjeon Shrine since it was impossible to …

Jongmyo Shrine is nothing to see. It likes an elders' garden. The worth thing and the most important thing is annual holy services for the Kings and Queens at the fist Saturday in May. It keeps the traditional dances and musical for over several hundred years

This is sober stuff. I don't know if you can say that you like it or not - it's meant as a shrine. Although I did some homework I didn't really get a grip on this monument during my first visit in 2001.

The shrine nowadays can only be visited with a guide (except on Saturdays, when you can walk around on your own freely). Four times a day there is a guided tour in English. I bought a ticket for the tour at 4 p.m., a tour that still attracted 25-30 people.

In this shrine are kept the so-called memorial tablets for the kings and queens of the last dynasty of Korea. Their bodies are buried elsewhere. Twice a year, these ancestors are honored by a big ritual of song, dance and music in the Confucian tradition. The rest of the year the complex is peaceful and quiet. The tablets are kept behind closed doors. You have to watch your step walking here: the spirits have their own path that leads directly to the shrine.

The tablets of the most important kings are located in the main building on the site: an elongated building with 35 rooms on a vast square. Next to it is a similar building for the less important ancestors. In the freezing cold of early January, it is all very austere, but I'm glad I went for a second time to hear more of the explanations from the guide.