1 · POSITION
Gwangjang Market was founded in 1905 by Korean merchants who wanted a market Japan did not control, and it became the first permanent market in the country open every day of the week. It covers 42,000 square metres in central Seoul. It is entered here for its food alley, the reason most visitors come. [1]
2 · A MARKET MADE AS A REFUSAL
After the Eulsa Treaty, Japan took control of Namdaemun Market. Private Korean investors pooled their funds and created the Gwangjang Corporation on 5 July 1905, building a new market on the site of the existing Bae O Gae market and calling it Dongdaemun Market. Most markets before it had been temporary or held only on certain days. [1]
3 · THE NAME
A shopping centre built between 1957 and 1959 took its name from the two bridges it stood between, and in 1960 the market itself was renamed Gwangjang. Its vendors still sell textiles, clothing, fruit, meat, fish and handicrafts, alongside the cooked food that brings most visitors. [1]
4 · THE FOOD ALLEY
The food stalls gather at the market’s main crossing, under a glass roof added in 2005 to shelter them from rain and snow. Bindaetteok is ground and fried in front of the customer — the best-known stand, Bakganae, has been on television several times — beside mayak gimbap with its mustard and soy dip, sundae, jokbal and bibimbap. Office workers eat there at lunch and after work, and the alley was filmed for the Seoul episode of Netflix’s Street Food, which carried it far beyond the city. [1, 2]
5 · ⚑ CANDOUR
⚑ Checked on 22 October 2026. The 100,000 won raised by the founders was not found in any source read, and the note no longer gives it. The Korean encyclopedia names the founders as officials and merchants — Kim Jong-han, Park Gi-yang, Shin Tae-hyu, Hong Chung-hyeon, Park Seung-jik, Choi In-seong — moved by a rumour that the occupying Japanese would take the Seonhyecheong market, not by the loss of Namdaemun; the note now says this. Shop and vendor counts differ within the sources and both stand. [1–3]
Sources & Further Reading
Sources checked 22 October 2026.