Gwanghalluwon Garden is well-known as the setting of the classic novel Chunhyangjeon, but what is more important is its depiction as a Joseon Dynasty garden.
Old gardens in Korea are divided into three types - royal palace gardens built inside royal palaces, private gardens built by noble scholars typically after they retired to the country, and government office gardens built for official purposes. Gwanghalluwon is a notable “government office garden” established by the Namwon Government Office during the Joseon Dynasty.

A government office garden not only boasts the beauty of nature but also symbolizes longing for utopia as well as fidelity and loyalty to the king through each and every element it contains from structures in the garden to the arrangement of trees and lakes. Among many such gardens, Gwanghalluwon is widely regarded as the place that reproduced the “Utopia of the Joseon Dynasty” on earth and has immense symbolic significance.

In Gwanghalluwon, Gwanghallu Pavilion, which is also called Honamjeillu, is located in the center and Ojakgyo Bridge, Samsinsan Mountain and Wanwoljeong Pavilion form the central axis and, on both sides of these, you can find the Shrine to Chunhyang and the house and tavern of Wolmae from the novel.
The highlight of Gwanghalluwon is Gwanghallu, Treasure No. 281, and Ojakgyo right in front of the pavilion. Gwanghallu possesses such exceptional beauty and scenery that it is called one of the four pavilions of Korea along with Bubyeongnu in Pyongyang, Chokseongnu in Jinju and Yeongnamnu in Miryang. It was built by Hwang Hui who served as Joseon’s prime minister under King Sejong during his exile during the reign of King Taejong. Then, in 1582, Songgang Jeong Cheol, the newly appointed Jeolla Gwanchalsa at the time, built a lake and Ojakgyo.