Andong Hahoe Village

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Historic Villages Of Korea Hahoe And Yangdong (2010) · Andong, North Gyeongsang

A Joseon-era clan village of the Pungsan Ryu family set inside a broad loop of the Nakdong River about 25 km west of Andong, in North Gyeongsang. The name means the village where the water turns, and from the cliffs of Buyongdae across the river the houses can be seen sitting on a low plain wrapped almost completely by water and sandbanks, backed by pine woods and hills. Around a hundred and more households still live here, in a mix of large tile-roofed yangban mansions such as Yangjindang and Chunghyodang, the houses of the scholar-official Ryu Seong-ryong's line, and thatched commoners' homes with mud walls, linked by earthen lanes and stone walls. With Yangdong near Gyeongju it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010. Hahoe is also the home of the Hahoe Byeolsingut mask dance drama, whose carved wooden masks became symbols of Korea, and of Andong's autumn international mask dance festival. Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her birthday here in 1999, and visitors now sleep in village homestays and eat Andong jjimdak in town.

186 Jonga-gil, Pungcheon-myeon, Andong, North Gyeongsang, 36758, South Korea

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the ticket office and shuttle run roughly from 9 am to 6 pm in summer and to about 5 pm in winter, with last entry about an hour before closing; the village itself is lived in and overnight guests stay on. The mask museum keeps similar hours and may close on some holidays. Mask dance performances run on set afternoons, usually not every day and fewer in winter. Traps: arriving on a day with no mask dance; missing the last shuttle or the last bus back to Andong; the Buyongdae ferry not running; festival weekends with no rooms left in Andong.

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