Yanggu County Surpasses 480,000 Annual Tourists... Led by "Hanbando-seom and the DMZ"

Visitors to Major Tourism and Cultural Facilities in Yanggu County
Up Approximately 14% Year-on-Year
About 140,000 Visitors to Signature Destination Hanbando-seom
Expansion of Tourism in the DMZ Area

Last year, the number of visitors to major tourism and cultural facilities in Yanggu County increased, with a total of approximately 483,000 people visiting Yanggu.

Paroho Hanbando Island. Provided by Yanggu County

The visitor tally covered 18 major tourism and cultural facilities, including Hanbando-seom, Yanggu Arboretum, Yanggu White Porcelain Museum, and Gwangchi Natural Recreation Forest. The total number of visitors represented an increase of about 14.2% compared with the previous year (approximately 423,000 visitors in 2024).

The facility that attracted the largest number of visitors last year was Hanbando-seom, Yanggu County's representative tourist destination, which drew about 140,000 people. In particular, the overall increase in tourists was driven by the rise in visitors to Hanbando-seom, along with a sharp increase at DMZ-area security tourism sites such as Eulji Observatory, the Unification Hall, and the War Memorial.

The reopening of Eulji Observatory in 2025 and the completion of exhibition environment improvement work at the War Memorial are analyzed to have had a positive effect on expanding tourist inflows.

Yanggu County is simultaneously pursuing a variety of tourism policies and infrastructure expansion projects to extend tourists' length of stay and improve their satisfaction.

First, the county plans to operate a one-night, two-day stay-type tour course that circulates through the regions centered on Bangsan-myeon and Haean-myeon, in order to induce stay-type spending by visitors. It will also hold a Yanggu County tourism souvenir contest to develop tourism products that reflect the local image.

In addition, the county plans to reorganize its tourism information system around the Yanggu Integrated Tourist Information Center, which is scheduled for completion in June, and to enhance convenience for domestic and international tourists by producing multilingual tourist maps, fully refurbishing tourist information boards, and installing new foreign-language information signs.

Gwangchi Gyegok. Provided by Yanggu-gun

At the same time, Yanggu County will continue to push ahead with major tourism infrastructure projects such as the Sparkling Hanbando-seom Development Project, the Peace Village Development Project, and the Paroho Flower Island Sky Bridge Development Project, in order to strengthen its tourism competitiveness.

Park Hyunjeong, head of the Tourism and Culture Division, said, "As recent tourism trends are shifting toward experience- and stay-oriented travel, we will continue to expand tour courses and infrastructure that highlight Yanggu’s unique characteristics to enhance visitor satisfaction," adding, "Going forward, we will systematically implement tourism policies that link Hanbando-seom with DMZ-area tourism resources so that Yanggu can establish itself as a tourist city that visitors want to return to and stay in."