On the evening of March 21, 2026, BTS will walk out through the gates of Gyeongbokgung Palace — one of the oldest and most significant royal palaces in Korean history — cross the ceremonial woldae platform, and step into Gwanghwamun Square to perform before an expected crowd of up to 260,000 people. The concert, titled BTS The Comeback Live: ARIRANG, will be livestreamed globally on Netflix across 190 countries. It is, by any measure, an extraordinary event.
But the square where it happens is already extraordinary. It was extraordinary long before BTS existed, long before K-pop existed, and long before Seoul became the city it is today. Understanding Gwanghwamun Square — really understanding it — changes how the concert feels. It is not simply a large open space chosen for its capacity. It is the literal center of Korean history, a place where the country's most defining moments have unfolded for more than six hundred years.
 |
| The iconic stairs of Sejong Center became globally recognized after BTS performed here, turning this cultural landmark into a symbol of modern Korean pop culture. [BigHit] |
If you are traveling to Seoul for this concert, or simply watching from home and curious about the place, this is what you should know.
 |
| Gwanghwamun Square stretches 555 meters from the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin northward to the gates of Gyeongbokgung Palace |
Six Hundred Years in One Location
The story of Gwanghwamun Square begins in 1394, when King Taejo of the Joseon Dynasty moved the capital to Hanyang — present-day Seoul — and constructed Gyeongbokgung Palace as the seat of royal power. The road leading south from the palace's main gate became the most important street in the country. It was called Yukjo-geori — the Street of Six Ministries — because the government offices that administered the entire nation were lined along both sides of it.
For the people of Joseon, this road was not simply a thoroughfare. It was where governance happened, where royal proclamations were read, where officials traveled to conduct the affairs of state. The space in front of Gwanghwamun Gate functioned as the physical threshold between the royal world inside the palace and the civic world outside it.
Even after Gwanghwamun Gate was destroyed by fire during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, the space in front of the gate continued to house government buildings. The road endured. The administrative function endured. The location's centrality to Korean public life endured through dynasty, invasion, occupation, and war.
The history of the square continued through the People's Assembly, the March 1st Independence Movement, and the civil revolution to the present day, with Gwanghwamun Square emerging as a symbol of democracy. When Koreans have gathered to speak collectively — in celebration, in protest, in grief — they have gathered here. The 2002 FIFA World Cup street cheering that brought millions of Koreans together in red happened here. The candlelight vigils of 2016 and 2017 that led to a presidential impeachment happened here. The square has been, across its entire history, the place where Korea speaks to itself in a large voice.
What the Japanese Colonial Period Did to This Place
To understand why Gwanghwamun Square carries the emotional weight it does for Koreans, you need to understand what happened to it during the Japanese colonial period from 1910 to 1945.
Gwanghwamun Gate was moved to a new location east of the palace after the office of the Government-General of Joseon was built in the palace precincts after the coerced annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire in 1910. The deliberate relocation of the gate — physically removing the main symbol of Korean royal sovereignty from its original position — was not an administrative decision. It was an act of symbolic erasure. The Government-General building was constructed directly in front of the palace, blocking the view of Gyeongbokgung from the city and imposing colonial authority over the most significant architectural symbol of Korean independence.
The street that had been the administrative heart of Korean civilization for five hundred years was absorbed into a colonial urban structure designed to communicate subjugation. The square that had existed as a Korean civic space became something else entirely.
This history is why the restoration of Gwanghwamun Gate to its original position — completed in 2008 after decades of controversy and multiple reconstruction efforts — was not merely an architectural project. It was a statement about identity and recovery that carried genuine emotional significance for many Koreans. Gwanghwamun Square is a historical and symbolic landmark that served as a national cornerstone since the founding of the Joseon dynasty. Restoring its original spatial relationship — palace gate, square, the long avenue south — was an act of historical repair.
The Two Statues and What They Mean
Standing in Gwanghwamun Square today, two bronze statues define the visual experience of the space. Both represent figures central to Korean national identity, and both were chosen deliberately for their positions in the square.
 |
| Admiral Yi Sun-sin has stood at the center of Gwanghwamun Square since 1968 — facing south, as if still guarding the capital [Photo: Korea Tour Organization] |
The statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin stands at the southern end of the square, closer to the city's commercial center. Admiral Yi Sun-shin is a naval commander noted for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) and a hero among Koreans. His military genius — particularly his use of the geobukseon, the armored turtle ship — is credited with preventing the complete conquest of the Korean peninsula. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders in world history, comparable in strategic innovation to figures like Nelson and Napoleon, and is revered in Korea with a depth of respect that has not diminished across four centuries.
Further north, closer to the palace, sits the statue of King Sejong the Great. King Sejong the Great is the fourth and most respected king of the Joseon Dynasty and creator of Hangeul, Korea's alphabet. In 1443, Sejong commissioned the creation of a writing system specifically designed to be learnable by ordinary people — not just scholars trained in classical Chinese. Hangeul, with its systematic phonetic structure, gave literacy to a population that had been largely excluded from it. Its creation is considered one of the most significant cultural achievements in Korean history. The statue features King Sejong seated on a throne facing south, holding a copy of the Hunminjeongeum Haeryebon — the book of the Korean writing system he had invented.
These two figures — one who defended the country's existence, one who gave its people a language — frame the square's north-south axis and define what Gwanghwamun Square is intended to mean.
 |
| King Sejong the Great — inventor of Hangeul, Korea's writing system — watches over the square from a six-meter bronze throne |
Why BTS Chose Arirang and Why This Place
The concert on March 21 marks the release of BTS's fifth studio album, titled ARIRANG — named after Korea's most ancient and beloved folk song. Arirang is not a single song but a family of regional melodies, sung across the Korean peninsula for centuries, carrying themes of separation, longing, resilience, and the endurance of love across distance and hardship. It has been sung by Koreans during the Japanese colonial period as an expression of suppressed national identity. It has been sung at the Korean border as a song that belongs to both North and South. UNESCO recognized Arirang as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012.
For BTS — a group that has consistently engaged with Korean identity, historical memory, and the emotional experience of being Korean in a globalized world — titling a comeback album Arirang and staging its release concert at Gwanghwamun Square is a deliberate and coherent artistic choice. The palace behind. The gate that was moved and restored. The street that was built for governance and became the site of democratic assembly. The square that carries six hundred years of Korean collective memory. The song that survived occupation by being sung in defiance of it.
The seven members are expected to appear from within the palace grounds, walking through Geunjeongmun and Heungnyemun gates before exiting through the main Gwanghwamun Gate to begin the performance. The staging is not decorative. It is a reading of the location's history expressed through movement and performance.
The Gate Itself
Gwanghwamun Gate — the structure BTS will walk through at the concert's opening — deserves more than a passing mention. The name Gwanghwamun (광화문) translates roughly as "may the light of virtue illuminate all under heaven" — a phrase that captures the Joseon Dynasty's Confucian aspiration to govern through moral authority rather than force.
The gate's current structure is a reconstruction. The gate was rebuilt as a concrete structure during the Third Republic (1963–1972) but restored at its original location in 2008 after continued controversies over its location and building materials. The 2008 restoration used traditional wooden construction methods to produce a version closer to the original's appearance, and the gate was reopened in its current form in 2010.
Standing in front of Gwanghwamun Gate and looking north, with the palace courtyard visible through its three arched passages and Bugaksan mountain rising directly behind the palace rooflines, is one of the genuinely striking views in Seoul. The spatial alignment — square, gate, palace, mountain — was designed by Joseon architects as a deliberate composition, orienting the capital city toward the natural landmark at its northern edge. That alignment has survived six centuries, multiple destructions, colonial displacement, and reconstruction. It still works exactly as intended.
What to See When You Are There
Gwanghwamun Square is not simply a space to pass through on the way to the concert. It is a destination that rewards time and attention.
The Yukjo Yard contains a History Waterway — stone slabs inscribed with Korean history from the foundation of the Joseon Dynasty in 1392 to the present. Walking along it is a literal timeline of Korean history embedded in the pavement. The excavated archaeological remains of Saheonbu — one of the original Joseon government offices — are preserved and visible beneath a dedicated exhibition space set into the square's surface. The woldae — the ceremonial elevated platform in front of Gwanghwamun Gate, restored as part of recent renovation work — is where BTS will begin their entrance.
The Hangeul Fountain creates the consonants and vowels of the Korean alphabet in water. The Myeongnyang Fountain in front of Admiral Yi Sun-sin's statue commemorates the Battle of Myeongnyang, in which Yi defeated a Japanese fleet of over three hundred ships with only thirteen vessels — one of the most improbable military victories in recorded history.
Gyeongbokgung Palace, immediately behind Gwanghwamun Gate, is open to the public and is the largest of Seoul's five Joseon-era palaces. The National Folk Museum of Korea is located within the palace grounds. To the east, Bukchon Hanok Village — a neighborhood of preserved traditional Korean houses — is walkable. To the west, Seochon Hanok Village, historically the neighborhood of artists and scholars, offers quieter streets with galleries, independent cafés, and traditional architecture.
Cheonggyecheon Stream — a restored urban waterway running east from near the square — provides a walking path that contrasts the density of the surrounding city with a narrow green corridor at street level.
Practical Notes for Concert Day
The concert is set to begin at 8 p.m. on March 21 in and around the Gwanghwamun Square area and will run for about one hour. Seoul police are preparing extensive crowd control measures amid expectations that attendance could reach 260,000. The area will be managed as a virtual stadium, with designated entry and exit points.
Police have requested that Seoul Metro consider temporarily bypassing Gwanghwamun Station on Line 5, Gyeongbokgung Station on Line 3, and City Hall Station on Lines 1 and 2 if necessary. Arriving early and on foot from a station further away is likely to be more practical than attempting to arrive by subway immediately before the concert.
The concert will also be livestreamed globally via Netflix, marking the first time a Korean artist's live event will be broadcast in real time across 190 countries and territories on the platform.
For those in Seoul but without a ticket, the performance will be broadcast live on large LED screens installed around the Gwanghwamun area, including at the Koreana Hotel and KT Gwanghwamun Building. Seoul Plaza, in front of City Hall, will also have a viewing area.
The square will be worth visiting before concert day, and worth returning to after. The event is one evening. The place has been here for six centuries.
FRANVIA explains everyday life in Korea — not as a destination, but as a place people actually live.
.webp)
.webp)
0 Comments
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts.
We appreciate every conversation that grows around everyday life in Korea.