Hwaseong National Geopark

Character

Hwaseong National Geopark spreads across reclaimed coast, ports and islands, with eight certified geosites that together expose dinosaur fossils, folded metamorphic rocks, Cretaceous tuff, faults, veins, mudflats and wave-cut landforms

Gojeong-ri is the clearest starting point. More than 300 dinosaur egg fossils have been found there since the first discovery in 1999, and the geotrail passes nesting material, burrows, tafoni, faults, drag folds and cross-bedding. The wider Tando Basin also produced *Koreaceratops hwaseongensis*, the first Korean horned dinosaur species to be formally described

Ueumdo exposes gneiss, schist and phyllite with folds, faults, dikes and mineral veins; Jeongokhang preserves bedded tuff from Cretaceous volcanic activity. Jebudo combines Precambrian metamorphic rocks with sea cliffs, sea caves, beaches, dunes and mudflats. Ippado and Gukhwado add island folds and coastal structures shaped by both tectonics and erosion

The experience

Visitors can group the mainland geosites into one trip—such as the dinosaur-egg site, Ueumdo and Jeongokhang—while saving Jebudo and the southern coast for another. The official island courses treat Ippado and Gukhwado as separate excursions from nearby ports

At Gojeong-ri, the boardwalk and visitor center make the geology easy to read at ground level. Fossils and sedimentary structures sit beside the reclaimed-land ecology, so the landscape records both Cretaceous environments and very recent human alteration of the coast

At Jebudo, the tidal road opens according to the sea, while the geotrail follows exposed metamorphic rock and coastal erosion forms. The island already works as a destination in its own right; inside the geopark it becomes one piece of a much longer geological sequence

History

The city started national-geopark certification planning in 2016, building a network around geosites already known individually for fossils, coastal scenery and academic value

The Ministry of Environment certified Hwaseong as Korea’s 16th national geopark on February 29, 2024. The certified area covers 282.5 square kilometres—165.9 square kilometres on land and 116.6 at sea—and includes eight official geosites: Gojeong-ri Dinosaur Egg Fossil Site, Ueumdo, Jeongokhang Bedded Tuff, Jebudo, Baengmi-ri Coast, Gungpyeonghang, Ippado and Gukhwado

The certification recognized a geological record spanning Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Quaternary rocks and deposits. That range reflects Hwaseong’s position near the boundary between major geological belts in western Korea, where long tectonic history is exposed beside a coast that is still being reshaped by tides, reclamation and erosion

Before you go

The geopark works as a regional network. The dinosaur-egg site is the easiest interpretation anchor, while the park’s wider range is clearer when two or three geographically compatible geosites are combined. Island sites require separate ferry planning, and Jebudo access remains tide-dependent