The Most Beautiful Places in Jeju
5 places ยท updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Jeju are Seongsan Ilchulbong, Hallasan and Manjanggul and Gimnyeonggul Lava Tubes. The list covers 5 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Jeju is a volcanic island off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula, built by eruptions over the last two million years or so. A single great shield volcano, Hallasan, forms its spine, and its flanks are scattered with hundreds of small cones called oreum. Basalt lava created coasts of black rock, sea cliffs of columns and long tubes underground, and the island's milder climate gives it a landscape unlike any on the mainland. Since 2007, its volcanic core has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hallasan is the highest mountain in South Korea, with a crater lake near its summit and bands of forest climbing from subtropical to alpine. On the island's eastern tip, Seongsan Ilchulbong is a tuff cone that rose from the shallow sea in an eruption, its bowl-shaped crater rimmed by sharp ridges; its name means Sunrise Peak. Underground, Manjanggul is one of the longest lava tubes in the world, a tunnel left when the outer crust of a lava flow cooled while molten rock drained out beneath.
Along the south coast, the volcanic rock meets the sea in two remarkable ways. Jeongbang Waterfall plunges directly onto the shore, one of very few in Asia to fall straight into the ocean. Daepo Jusangjeolli is a stretch of cliffs made of hexagonal basalt columns, formed as thick lava cooled and contracted, with waves breaking against their stepped edges.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seongsan Ilchulbong | Volcano | |
| 2 | Hallasan | Volcano | |
| 3 | Manjanggul and Gimnyeonggul Lava Tubes | Lava tube | |
| 4 | Jeongbang Waterfall | Waterfall | |
| 5 | Daepo Jusangjeolli Cliff | Cliff |
01 Seongsan Ilchulbong
South Korea ยท 39.5 km from Jeju33.458ยฐ N 126.942ยฐ E
- UNESCO natural beauty
Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service ยท CC BY-SA 2.0 Seongsan Ilchulbong, "Sunrise Peak", rises from the eastern tip of Jeju Island like a crown set at the edge of the sea. It is a tuff cone, built around 6,700 years ago when magma met seawater on a shallow seabed and blew apart in violent steam-driven explosions of the kind named after Iceland's Surtsey.
Did you know? In 2010 it became one of the sites of the Jeju UNESCO Global Geopark.
02 Hallasan
South Korea ยท 17.8 km from Jeju33.350ยฐ N 126.517ยฐ E
Image by tobatoppers from Pixabay Hallasan, at 1,947 metres the highest mountain in South Korea, is the broad volcano that forms most of Jeju Island. It rises from the sea in long, gentle slopes typical of a shield volcano, and at its summit a crater holds the lake of Baengnokdam, roughly 2 km around and up to about 100 metres deep.
Did you know? About 20 of the island's volcanic cones are tuff rings, formed where rising magma met water and exploded.
03 Manjanggul and Gimnyeonggul Lava Tubes
South Korea ยท 23.1 km from Jeju33.528ยฐ N 126.770ยฐ E
๊ฐํ์ ยท CC BY 4.0 Manjanggul is a tunnel left behind by molten rock. When lava from the Geomunoreum volcano in north-eastern Jeju flowed towards the sea, its surface cooled into a crust while the liquid rock kept moving underneath. When the flow drained away it left a hollow pipe.
Did you know? Counting its side branches, the whole Manjanggul system adds up to more than 13 km of passages, and the main tube alone reaches about 23 m wide in places.
04 Jeongbang Waterfall
South Korea ยท 29.8 km from Jeju33.245ยฐ N 126.572ยฐ E
Image by REXLUNA from Pixabay Jeongbang Waterfall falls straight onto the seashore. Its water, about 23 metres high and up to 8 metres wide depending on recent rain, drops from a cliff of columnar-jointed volcanic rock onto boulders at the edge of the sea, so that the spray and the surf meet at its foot.
Did you know? Jamaica's Dunn's River Falls is often cited as one of the very few comparable waterfalls that end directly on a seashore.
05 Daepo Jusangjeolli Cliff
South Korea ยท 31.6 km from Jeju33.237ยฐ N 126.425ยฐ E
Image by HanshinLyon from Pixabay On the south coast of Jeju, between Jungmun and Daepo, the shoreline is built of stone pillars.
Did you know? Although most pillars are hexagonal, their cross-sections range from four to seven sides along the roughly two-kilometre stretch of coast.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented โ the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Jeju?
- On our list, Seongsan Ilchulbong ranks first, followed by Hallasan and Manjanggul and Gimnyeonggul Lava Tubes.
- How tall is Hallasan?
- Hallasan rises to 1,947 metres, making it the highest mountain in South Korea. Its summit crater holds a small lake called Baengnokdam.
- How was Seongsan Ilchulbong formed?
- It is a tuff cone created by a hydrovolcanic eruption in shallow sea water, when magma met water and exploded into fine ash. The ash built up into a steep cone that later became joined to Jeju by a strip of land.
- Why are the cliffs at Jusangjeolli shaped like columns?
- When thick lava cools, it contracts and cracks into regular polygons, usually hexagons. The cracks run down through the flow, leaving tall columns of basalt like those at Daepo Jusangjeolli.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Jeju?
- In our collection, the places in Jeju are most often volcanoes (2), cliffs (1), caves (1) and lava tubes (1).
- How many places are on this list in Jeju?
- The list covers 5 places.