Okjeongho Lake

Character

At Yosan Park, Okjeongho’s view includes a memorial to 18 villages submerged as the reservoir expanded and a pavilion moved uphill before completion of the 1965 multipurpose dam; an earlier reservoir had existed here since 1928. The same water now surrounds Bungeoseom and the suspension bridge that draws most visitors

Okjeongho is an artificial lake on the upper Seomjin River. Imsil records a water surface of about 26.3 square kilometres and a storage capacity of roughly 460 million tonnes, created through successive dam projects that turned the valley into one of Jeonbuk’s major reservoirs

Bungeoseom is the most recognizable shape in the water. Rising reservoir levels left the former landform isolated, and the island later took its popular name from the fish-like outline seen from Guksabong. Since 2022, a 420-metre suspension bridge has linked Yosan Park directly to the island

The older traces remain close to the new visitor infrastructure. Yangyojeong, a pavilion originally built beside the river, was relocated to higher ground in 1965. The Manghyang memorial at Yosan Park commemorates the communities whose homes and fields disappeared beneath the expanded lake

The experience

The main managed visitor route begins at Yosan Park. From the memorial and lakeside paths, the suspension bridge crosses to Bungeoseom Ecological Park on a 420-metre span with an 80-metre central tower shaped around the image of a jumping fish

Bungeoseom is a walking destination in its own right, with gardens, waterside paths, a small forest library and open spaces distributed across the island. The bridge changed access fundamentally: before its construction, regular public entry depended on boats

Guksabong provides a separate view of the reservoir from higher ground. From that side, Bungeoseom appears as a small fish-shaped island within a much broader basin of water and ridgelines, making the scale of the reservoir clearer than the close bridge approach does

Other pieces of the lake sit farther apart: the Seomjingang Dam, the Water Literature Hall, the Okjeongho Masil-gil trail and the scenic road around the reservoir. Okjeongho therefore works as a distributed landscape rather than a single enclosed attraction

History

The first modern reservoir here dates to 1928, when the Seomjin River was dammed for agricultural water. The lake expanded dramatically after the Seomjingang multipurpose dam was completed in 1965; Imsil describes it as Korea’s first multipurpose dam

Current Korea Tourism Organization material records more than 300 houses affected and a memorial tower representing 18 submerged villages. Yangyojeong was moved uphill before the water rose over its former riverside site

The reservoir’s purpose extended well beyond Imsil. Water was redirected toward agricultural land in the Honam plain, while the multipurpose system also supported power generation and regional water supply

Tourism infrastructure arrived much later. Guksabong became a well-known lookout over Bungeoseom, and the 420-metre suspension bridge opened for trial use in October 2022 before regular paid operation in 2023. The bridge turned the island from a difficult-to-reach viewpoint subject into a public walking destination

Before you go

Okjeongho has several separate visitor areas. Bungeoseom, Yosan Park and the suspension bridge form one concentrated node, while Guksabong, the dam and the Masil-gil trail require separate approaches around the reservoir. A full lake visit therefore involves moving between locations rather than following one continuous pedestrian circuit