---
node: spot_seoul_insadong
type: spot
slug: insadong
destination: dest_seoul
title: "Insa-dong"
lead: "Insa-dong is a street of galleries, antique dealers, paper shops and tea houses running south from Anguk station. It has been the city's art-dealing quarter since Korean collections were broken up and sold in the colonial period."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_seoul_insadong.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_paper_store_at_Insadong,_Seoul-01.jpg"
image_author: "Richard Fisher from London, UK"
image_license: "CC BY 2.0"
---

## Overview

The trade began when aristocratic households sold their furniture and scrolls after 1910, and the dealers who bought them stayed. Today the main street is largely souvenir shops, and the real business is in the alleys either side: mounting studios, brush makers, and galleries showing contemporary work. Ssamziegil, a spiral-ramped shopping building of 2004, is worth walking up for the small independent makers on its terraces.

## Highlights

Turn off the main street immediately — the alleys hold the tea houses, and a tea house here means a courtyard, a hundred varieties and no hurry. The main street is pedestrianised on Sundays. For paper, the shops sell hanji by the sheet in a range no craft shop elsewhere matches.