Seongsan Ilchulbong

Interesting facts

The cone was once a separate island; sand and gravel worn from its own flanks built up a narrow tombolo that now ties it to Jeju.

The grassy crater floor lies about 90 metres above sea level, roughly halfway between the waves and the rim.

South Korea declared the peak a Natural Monument on 19 July 2000, seven years before its UNESCO listing.

In 2010 it became one of the sites of the Jeju UNESCO Global Geopark.

A 2011 botanical survey recorded about 240 plant taxa on the small cone.

Around 2.45 million people climbed or visited the peak in 2011 alone.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, when Jeju was under Mongol influence, horse ranches were set up on the land around the peak.

Why it is worth it

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. The ash and fragments piled into a near-perfect ring, and the sea has since cut its outer walls into steep ribbed cliffs, so that from a distance the peak resembles a fortress with jagged ramparts. It stands 182 metres high, and its bowl-shaped crater, about 600 metres across, is carpeted with grass and silvery reeds rather than water.

What makes the place geologically famous is how clearly it shows its own making. The wave-cut cliffs expose the internal layering of the cone in cross-section, a textbook of hydrovolcanic eruption that helped earn its listing in 2007 as part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes. From the summit you look back over the low neck of land that ties the cone to Jeju, toward green farmland and the volcanic cones (oreum) that dot the island. During the Second World War the Japanese navy dug some eighteen caves into the base of the cliffs to hide suicide boats, a sombre detail in an otherwise serene setting.

The ascent follows wooden staircases and takes up to half an hour; the name comes from the tradition of climbing in the dark to watch the sun come up out of the East China Sea, and since 1994 a sunrise festival has been held here over New Year's Eve and the first days of January. Below the cliffs on the western side, Jeju's haenyeo, the women free-divers who gather shellfish and seaweed without breathing gear, can often be seen, and their catch is sold near the shore.

Getting there

The peak stands in Seongsan-eup on the far east of Jeju, about 40 km from Jeju City and 42 km from Jeju International Airport (CJU). Express buses from the airport and the east-coast city bus 201, which runs between Jeju Bus Terminal and Seogwipo, stop at Seongsan Ilchulbong. Seongsan port, about 1.5 km away, has ferries to Udo island.

Seongsan Ilchulbong

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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