Korea's coffee capital — beach cafés, pine forests, and traditional Confucian villas
Gangneung is a coastal city in Gangwon Province that has developed an unexpected international reputation as Korea's coffee capital — the Anmok Coffee Street, where dozens of cafés line the beach, attracts 10 million visitors a year, and the city hosts the world's largest specialty coffee festival. The surrounding pine forests and Gyeongpo Lagoon are quintessential Korean coastal scenery, and Ojukheon — the 16th-century birthplace of the philosopher Yi I (Yulgok), whose face appears on the 5,000 won note — is one of the best-preserved Joseon period residential complexes in Korea.
Gangneung has been an important city on Korea's east coast since the Three Kingdoms period, when it was called Haseo. The Ojukheon villa, built around 1500 CE, is the birthplace of Shin Saimdang — Korea's most celebrated female artist, whose image appears on the 50,000 won note — and her son Yi I (Yulgok), the philosopher who proposed military reform that might have prevented the Japanese invasions of 1592. Gangneung was co-host of the 2018 Winter Olympics, which brought significant investment and infrastructure to the region.