Daewangam Park

Daewangam Park is home to Daewangam, where the sun rises earliest in South Korea alongside Ganjeolgot in Ulju County. Located at the easternmost tip of the southeastern coast of South Korea jutting toward the East Sea, Daewangam Park is also renowned as the Ulgi navigational beacon that guides ships through the East Sea. The path from the park entrance to the lighthouse stretches 600 meters through a dense pine forest, where the shade of tall pine trees that have grown for over a century provides coolness and coziness. Beyond the pine forest lies an open coastal cliff with a massive collection of boulders so enormous that they evoke the illusion of prehistoric dinosaur fossils lying prostrate in the blue seawater. Daewangam Park preserves a mystical legend that after the queen of King Munmu, who achieved the unification of the Three Kingdoms during the Silla period, died, she followed King Munmu and became a guardian dragon, sinking beneath the great rock of Daewangam in Ulsan's East Sea. Apart from Daewangam, the landscape is filled with Namgunbawi, a strangely shaped rock that people attempted to topple but narrowly avoided disaster in the process, along with Tanggeonbawi and Jasal Bawi, a rocky islet floating near the beach, and Cheonyeobong. To the right of the rocky coastline stands the old Bangeojin Fisheries Middle School, said to have been founded by the late Professor Lee Jong-san, and beneath it stretches a pebbly beach of approximately 500 meters, adding to the charm of the rocky shoreline.

Korea Tourism Organization