Autumn colour
Roughly 1,000 to 1,300 years old.
Ancient trees in South Korea
South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration keeps close enough tabs on its old trees to catch a legend in the act: an oak in Sillim-dong said to have grown from a general's walking stick in 1019 measured out, on survey, to about 250 years, a successor standing near where the legend took root. We map 11 trees in 3 cities here. The oldest of them is The Ginkgo Tree of Yongmunsa Temple in Yangpyeong, at roughly 1,100 years.
Seoul carries eight of the eleven trees mapped so far, among them the Siheung-dong ginkgos, two or three trees at the center of a traffic circle marking a vanished royal way station, and a Changdeokgung juniper the palace itself is built around. Busan holds a fortress pine and a stand of crape myrtles, eight hundred years old by tradition. An hour east in Yangpyeong, a ginkgo King Sejong is said to have granted a court rank turns the mountain road gold each autumn, and by most measurements is the tallest of its kind in the country.
Every place we map in South Korea
1
Seoul8 trees · oldest 700-880 years2Busan2 trees · oldest 800 years3Yangpyeong1 tree · oldest 1,100 years
Seoul8 trees · oldest 700-880 years2Busan2 trees · oldest 800 years3Yangpyeong1 tree · oldest 1,100 years8 species grow in South Korea
Oaks Oriental Cork Oak 1
Elms and zelkovas Saw-leaf Zelkova 1
Conifers Ginkgo 4 · Japanese Black Pine 1 · Lacebark Pine 1
More broadleaf trees Chinese Juniper 1 · Crape Myrtle 1 · Japanese Pagoda Tree 1
The 10 oldest trees we map in South Korea
Roughly 700 to 900 years old.
Autumn colour
Roughly 700 to 880 years old.
Roughly 700 to 750 years old.
Photo: karendotcom127 (CC BY 2.0)
Autumn colour
Roughly 650 to 700 years old.
Autumn colour
Roughly 550 to 830 years old.
Photo: Mechurii (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Roughly 500 to 600 years old.
Autumn colour
Roughly 400 to 507 years old.
Roughly 380 to 450 years old.
Roughly 350 to 450 years old.
Trees from South Korea also appear in Autumn Worth the Trip · The Tallest Trees We Have Measured · The Oldest Tree in Every City We Map. See every city on the map, or open the map to find what is near you.