National Museum of Korea to open, close 30 minutes earlier in March and test online reservation system next year
Published: 03 Feb. 2026, 15:33
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- JIN EUN-SOO
- [email protected]
![Inside the National Museum of Korea [NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2026/02/03/3fb11e10-354b-4052-853c-d50890c2e179.jpg)
Inside the National Museum of Korea [NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA]
The National Museum of Korea will open and close 30 minutes earlier and add new outdoor leisure facilities in an effort to ease congestion caused by the recent surge in visitors.
Starting March 16, the museum will open at 9:30 a.m. and close at 5:30 p.m. It will also build a new cafe and stairway that double as a seating area where visitors can rest after their tours outside the main building by August.
“People are already lined up by 8:30 a.m. despite us opening at 10 a.m., and [...] we felt apologetic [to those waiting outside for hours], so we decided to move up the opening time,” said the National Museum of Korea Director You Hong-june in a New Year's press conference on Tuesday.
“We also lacked cafes and diners, so we are building a new cafe — designed like a glass house — above the Mirror Pond Restaurant. We will also tear down the wall between the museum and the pond to build a stairway where people can rest and talk just like they do at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.”
The National Museum of Korea recorded a historic 6.5 million visitors in 2025, making it the fourth most-visited museum in the world that year after the Louvre, the Vatican Museums and the British Museum. The surge was attributed to the growing interest in Korean heritage at home and abroad, partially fueled by Netflix’s hit animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025), which features multiple references to traditional Korean symbols.
![National Museum of Korea Director You Hong-june holds a fan on which he jotted down his notes during a press conference at the museum in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Feb. 3. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2026/02/03/863276c7-c86f-4cb9-8e4e-961f53f45446.jpg)
National Museum of Korea Director You Hong-june holds a fan on which he jotted down his notes during a press conference at the museum in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Feb. 3. [YONHAP]
However, the museum is facing new challenges due to the sharp increase in visitors, such as overcrowding and parking shortages, and renewed attention on its role as people's gateway into Korean history and culture.
According to the museum, it will finish development on a customer relations management system by the end of this year and test an online reservation system by the first half of next year. The system will lay the groundwork for introducing admission fees and managing memberships.
“We are not charging admission because we want to reduce the number of visitors,” You said. “We are pushing for charged admission to elevate convenience for the visitors.”
The museum has also revamped its permanent exhibitions to encourage repeat visitors and longer stays.
It will reopen the painting and calligraphy sections later this month and rotate exhibitions so repeat visitors will have the chance to see something new. A life-size exhibition of Daedongyeojido, Korea's first large-scale map created by cartographer Kim Jeong-ho in the 19th century, will also be displayed at “Path to History,” the first space that visitors encounter when entering the museum, from Feb. 12.
“Dress Like a Museum Exhibit,” an annual contest in which participants dress up as artifacts in the museum, will expand to a nationwide event. It will hold a preliminary match for each region, including Seoul, with the final round to take place in September.
The museum is off to a good start, You says.
It already saw 670,000 visitors in January, a 30 percent increase from the same month last year.
BY JIN EUN-SOO [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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