17 UNESCO sites that tell Korea's story

Between 1995 and 2025, the Republic of Korea inscribed 17 sites to the UNESCO World Heritage List — 15 cultural and two natural. Together they span the arc of the Korean story: prehistoric rock art and Bronze Age dolmen fields; the confederacies and three kingdoms of antiquity; the Buddhist golden age of Silla; the palaces, tombs, fortresses, villages, academies and monasteries of the Joseon court; and, in Jeju’s lava tubes and the "getbol" tidal flats, landscapes of global natural importance. E

2026-07-17 10:03:03:00

National Museum of Korea on track for record-breaking year

The National Museum of Korea welcomed a surge in visitors in the first half of 2026, with numbers climbing 39.7 percent compared with the same period last year. It marks the first time that half-year attendance has surpassed 3 million since the museum opened in 1945. The six-month figure even exceeds the museum's total attendance for all of 2024, which stood at 3.78 million visitors. The rise was especially pronounced among international visitors, whose January-June numbers jumped 68.8 percent f

2026-07-15 14:05:32:00

Seoul musical stages bet on names audiences already love

Seoul's musical season is betting on the familiar. Three of the summer's most anticipated shows are built on titles audiences already love: a record-breaking webtoon, a Grammy winner's Broadway hit and one of the most beloved animated films ever made. The bet is draw first-timers with the well-known names, then win them over with something the original never had: a live stage. The most homegrown of the three is a new Korean musical drawn from "Yumi's Cells" by Lee Dong-gun, which has amassed 3.5

2026-07-14 06:30:00:00

Wagner's Ring comes to Korea, condensed

“Der Ring des Nibelungen” or “The Ring of the Nibelung” in English, is opera at its most colossal: a four-evening cycle spanning fifteen to sixteen hours, written entirely by Richard Wagner himself over twenty-six years. Drawing on Norse myth and the medieval Nibelungenlied, it traces a world's rise and ruin through a cursed ring of power, sung over an orchestra of nearly a hundred players and stitched together by some two hundred leitmotifs. Wagner even built his own theater at Bayreuth to hous

2026-07-12 16:08:51:00

In Shenzhen, the surprise isn't the tech — it's the green

Korea Herald correspondent SHENZHEN, China — The green and the hardware are not opposites in Shenzhen; they run on the same logic. The city that manufactures the world's gadgets is now manufacturing its image as a green one — and, increasingly, turning that green into a business. The first thing a visitor notices in Shenzhen may be the green license plates — reserved for electric vehicles — on car after car after car. To someone arriving from another Chinese city like Beijing, the number of elec

2026-07-11 16:00:00:00

Chung Myung-whun to lead Classic Busan for two more years

Busan has extended conductor Chung Myung-whun's contract as artistic director of Classic Busan by two years, the city government said Friday. Under the renewed term, Chung will work with the city on the long-term operational direction of the Busan Opera House, slated to open in September next year, as well as on planning its opening festival. Chung was appointed in July 2023 as the inaugural artistic director of Classic Busan, the foundation overseeing both the Busan Concert Hall and the Busan O

2026-07-10 21:32:42:00

Seoul Philharmonic to open Prague Spring Festival in 2027, a first for a non-European orchestra

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the opening concerts of the Prague Spring International Music Festival on May 12 and 13, 2027, at the Smetana Hall of Prague's Municipal House, becoming the first non-European orchestra to open the festival in its 81-year history. The orchestra's CEO Jung Jae-wal announced the news at a press event on Wednesday, describing the invitation as both an honor and a serious responsibility. "This is not simply taking part," he said. "Opening the festival me

2026-07-10 13:44:57:00

Shenzhen built an architectural icon and then filled it with trash

Korea Herald correspondent SHENZHEN, China — A building featured in a Yale University Press survey stands in Shenzhen's Longgang District. Wrapped in a vast circular shell — a form its Scandinavian designers borrowed from the Hakka roundhouses native to the district — the structure is one of 55 that critic Hugh Pearman selected for "About Architecture," his June 2023 survey of structures that help explain the world. The identity of this building is the Longgang Energy Ecological Park, and it is

2026-07-08 14:49:10:00

Culture minister and Park Ji-sung to chair new K-Soccer Innovation Committee

Amid mounting calls to reform South Korean soccer following the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will launch the K-Soccer Innovation Committee on Monday, the ministry announced Friday. The committee will be a temporary body aimed at reforming South Korean soccer, with Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young and retired Korean soccer star Park Ji-sung, who is a member of the FIFA Men's Football Stakeholders Committee, serving as co-chairs. The committee brings together a d

2026-07-03 15:16:18:00

Seoul libraries become summer's coolest hangouts

Seoul's public libraries are transforming into summer retreats this July and August, offering air-conditioned refuge from the heat alongside books and cultural programming. The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on Friday that 223 public and small neighborhood libraries, including Seoul Metropolitan Library, are participating in a two-month campaign called "Libraries Are Cool: Off & Library," featuring 1,665 programs of lectures, performances, exhibitions, hands-on activities and film screenings

2026-07-03 11:00:04:00