Cheomseongdae Observatory, Gyeongju

About nine metres high: a base, a bottle-shaped cylinder, and a square frame across the top. The cylinder is twenty-seven courses of wedge-shaped stone, smooth outside and rough within, where the ends of the blocks project into the interior. A window faces south-east. Below it the tower is packed with rubble; above it, it is hollow all the way up. The projecting stones at courses 19–20 and 25–26 are placed where a ladder would need to rest, and an old record says a person went up through the middle — so the method was to climb a ladder outside, enter through the window, and take another ladder to the top. There are 362 stones in it, the number of days in a lunar year, and the count is generally read as deliberate. It was built in the seventh century under Queen Seondeok and is the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in East Asia.

Original Text

Visiting

Opening hours

Summer season 09:00-22:00 Winter season 09:00-21:00

Closed

N/A (Open all year round)

Parking

Available

Information

Gyeongju Station Tourist Information Center +82-54-772-3843

Visitor information: Korea Tourism Organization · KOGL Type 1

Where it is

Region

Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk

Designation

National Treasure · 국보