Korean Traditional Holidays Explained

Tap a holiday to see what it means and how it is celebrated.

Seollal (Lunar New Year)

Korea's biggest holiday, marking the first day of the lunar calendar. Families gather to perform ancestral rites, eat tteokguk (rice cake soup), and children give a formal bow (sebae) to elders in exchange for New Year's money.

Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving)

A harvest festival held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. Families gather to share food, visit ancestral graves, and eat songpyeon, a half-moon-shaped rice cake.

Dano

Falls on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month and traditionally marked the start of the farming season. Customary activities include washing hair with iris water and swinging on traditional swings.

Daeboreum (First Full Moon)

Celebrated on the first full moon of the lunar year. People eat five-grain rice and nuts (bureom) while wishing for good health, and communities hold moon-viewing and fire-related folk games.

Dongji (Winter Solstice)

The day with the longest night of the year. It is customary to eat red bean porridge (patjuk), believed to ward off bad luck.

Hansik (Cold Food Day)

Falls 105 days after the winter solstice. Traditionally people avoided cooking with fire and ate cold food, and families visited ancestral graves to tend them.

Why Korean holidays follow the lunar calendar

Most major traditional Korean holidays are set by the lunar calendar rather than the solar calendar, so their solar-calendar dates shift from year to year. Seollal and Chuseok in particular are multi-day national holidays when most businesses close and millions travel to their hometowns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do Seollal and Chuseok fall on different dates each year?

Because they are set by the lunar calendar, which has a different number of days than the solar calendar, their corresponding solar-calendar date shifts year to year.

What should visitors know if they are in Korea during Seollal or Chuseok?

Many shops, restaurants, and attractions close for several days, and public transportation and highways can be extremely crowded as people travel to see family, so planning ahead is worthwhile.