Explore Gyeongju

Daereungwon is a park in central Gyeongju holding 23 grassy burial mounds of Silla kings, queens and nobles. Paths wind between the tumuli, and Cheonmachong, excavated in 1973 and named after a flying horse painted on a birch-bark saddle flap found inside, is the one tomb open to visitors. The tombs have yielded gold crowns and other National Treasures.

Cheomseongdae is a stone astronomical observatory in central Gyeongju, built during the reign of Queen Seondeok of Silla (632–647). Its bottle-shaped tower of cut granite blocks stands on a square base, has a window opening halfway up and ends in a square frame of stone beams. It is a National Treasure and part of the Gyeongju Historic Areas World Heritage Site.

Bunhwangsa is a Buddhist temple in Gyeongju founded in 634 under Queen Seondeok of Silla and still in use. Its stone pagoda, built of black andesite cut like bricks, keeps three of its storeys, with guardian figures carved beside its doorways and stone lions at the corners of its base. It lies next to the Hwangnyongsa temple site.

Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond are the remains of a Silla palace in central Gyeongju, built under King Munmu in 674 beside an artificial pond with three small islands, long known as Anapji. Several pavilions have been rebuilt on their old foundations at the water's edge, and excavations from 1975 to 1986 recovered some 33,000 objects from the pond.

Hwangnyongsa is the site of a royal Silla temple in Gyeongju, begun in 553 under King Jinheung and for centuries the centre of state Buddhism. Its nine-storey wooden pagoda, built by the Baekje architect Abiji, stood until Mongol invaders burned the temple in 1238. Today an open field of large foundation stones shows where the halls and the pagoda stood.

Poseokjeong is a Unified Silla site at the foot of Namsan, south of central Gyeongju, where a royal pavilion once stood. What survives is a curving granite water channel about 10 metres long, built from 63 stones in the shape of an abalone shell, on which guests floated wine cups during poetry games. It was designated a historic site in 1963.

Bulguksa is a Buddhist temple on the slopes of Tohamsan, southeast of central Gyeongju, begun in 751 under King Gyeongdeok and completed in 774. Stone stairways called the Blue Cloud and White Cloud bridges lead up to the Jahamun gate, and the courtyard beyond holds the Dabotap and Seokgatap pagodas. With Seokguram it has been a World Heritage Site since 1995.

Seokguram is a granite grotto hermitage high on Tohamsan in Gyeongju, about 3 km above Bulguksa, begun in 751 and finished by the Silla court in 774. An antechamber and a corridor lead into a domed rotunda built from more than 360 stone slabs, where a large seated Buddha looks out towards the East Sea. It became a World Heritage Site with Bulguksa in 1995.