Tapgol Park

The stone pagoda inside Tapgol Park is protected by a glass pavilion and stands as the only remnant of the Wongaksa Temple that once occupied this site. During the Japanese occupation in nineteen nineteen, student leaders gathered here to read the Proclamation of Korean Independence. That reading triggered the March First Movement, a wave of nationwide protests against colonial rule. The park later became a public gathering space where the elderly still pass their afternoons on wooden benches near the stone monument.