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Are Seoul’s Markets Open on Sunday? Sundays, Mondays and Holidays

Travel Analysts

📄What reviewers found on Sunday at Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market and Mangwon Market: shops closed, food open. Plus Mondays, Chuseok and New Year.

Steel trays of side dishes at a Seoul market stall: stuffed cucumber kimchi, stacked perilla leaves in red chili seasoning, radish kimchi and cabbage kimchi, with a cup of tasting picks and price cards behind

💡Quick Answer

On Sundays, reviews describe Gwangjang Market and Namdaemun Market the same way: shops closed, food open. Fifteen Gwangjang reviews and eleven Namdaemun reviews say something is closed on Sunday, and nine and seven of them add that food stalls were trading. Eleven reviewers went to Mangwon Market on a Sunday and none reports a closure; three say its best-known stalls close on Mondays. Twelve reviews found closures on public holidays. We did not verify current closing days.

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Is Gwangjang Market Open on Sunday? The Food Is, the Shops Are Not

Whether a market is open on a given day is a current fact, and a review corpus is not the place to look it up. What reviews can show is what people found when they went. In our samples for Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market and Mangwon Market, 124 reviews say something about a day of the week or a holiday.

📅 By day of the week	Gwangjang Market (1,458)	Namdaemun Market (1,376)	Mangwon Market (1,089)
Says something is closed on Sunday, or that Sunday is the rest day	1.0% (15)	0.8% (11)	0.0% (0)
Went on a Sunday and found food or crowds	1.0% (15)	0.6% (8)	1.0% (11)
Says both: shops closed, food open	0.6% (9)	0.5% (7)	0.0% (0)
Advises against a Sunday visit	0.3% (5)	0.1% (2)	0.0% (0)
Says stalls close on Mondays	0.1% (1)	0.0% (0)	0.3% (3)
Says weekends are packed, or advises a weekday	0.8% (12)	0.6% (8)	2.3% (25)

At Gwangjang Market the two Sunday rows are the same size. Fifteen reviews say something is closed on Sunday, and fifteen describe going on a Sunday and finding food and crowds. Nine reviews say both at once.

we visited on a Sunday when only the food section was open — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, December 2024

We were wondering if things were closed Sunday. Then suddenly we saw where all the action was — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, September 2025

Five of the fifteen advise against a Sunday or went on another day because of it. What they came for decides it. One had come for the vintage clothing upstairs:

Do not come on sunday for vintage market — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 2 stars, July 2025

The trade-off: a Sunday at Gwangjang Market gives you the food alleys and takes away the fabric, bedding and clothing sections. It is also a weekend, and twelve reviews say weekends are when the market is packed.

Namdaemun Market on Sunday: A Rest Day With Street Stalls

Namdaemun Market is a shopping market first, so a Sunday costs it more. Eleven reviews say Sunday is a rest day or that much of the market is closed. Three more say that part of the market closes or keeps shorter hours at weekends, without naming the day.

I love this market but unfortunately on Sundays closed. — Google Maps review of Namdaemun Market, 5 stars, June 2025

It is not empty. Eight reviewers went on a Sunday and found street stalls or food stalls trading, and seven reviews say both things. One, in Japanese, had read that the market is closed on Sundays, went anyway, and found clothes being sold off stalls in the street, with less of a crowd than on a weekday. Another, also in Japanese, says about half the shops were open.

Do not go on Sunday because many shops were closed. — Google Maps review of Namdaemun Market, 5 stars, December 2025

The trade-off: the Sunday version of Namdaemun Market is the street, not the buildings. Two reviewers who found many shops closed tell you to pick another day.

Mangwon Market on Sunday and on Monday

Mangwon Market runs on a different calendar. Eleven reviewers describe going on a Sunday and not one reports a closure. What changes on a Sunday is the hour. Four found it quiet in the morning or around noon, and four found it packed in the afternoon or evening. One review, in Korean, says both: parking was possible on Sunday morning, and by the afternoon the crowd was reason to leave.

I went on a Sunday around 5 when the crowd was starting to die down. — Google Maps review of Mangwon Market, 5 stars, November 2025

Its closing day, in the reviews, is Monday. Three of them, from January 2023, October 2024 and October 2025, say that some of the best-known stalls are shut on Mondays. One names the hotteok stall. None says the market itself is closed.

The trade-off: the weekday that empties Mangwon Market can be the day its famous stalls are off. Three reviews is thin evidence, and it is all there is.

Chuseok, Seollal and New Year’s Day: Twelve Reviews From Holidays

Twelve reviews describe going on a public holiday and finding stalls or shops closed.

🎌 Holiday the review names	Gwangjang Market	Namdaemun Market	Mangwon Market
Chuseok	2	0	2
New Year’s Day	2	1	0
Lunar New Year (Seollal)	2	0	0
A public holiday it does not name	1	2	0
Reviews that found stalls or shops closed on a holiday	7	3	2

The pattern at Gwangjang Market matches its Sundays. Seven reviews found closures on a holiday, and five holiday reviews say the food stalls were open.

We went on New Year’s Day so only the food stalls and a few snack and clothing stalls were open. — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 4 stars, January 2020

Part was closed during hols but overall plenty to see — Google Maps review of Namdaemun Market, 5 stars, September 2024

At Mangwon Market two reviews found many stores closed during Chuseok. Three Korean-language reviews describe the other side of a holiday there: the market packed in the days before one, or over a long weekend, with people buying holiday food.

The trade-off: twelve reviews across seven years cannot tell you which stalls close on which holiday. They agree on the direction: food is the part most likely to be open.

Weekends Versus Weekdays at the Three Markets

The last row of the first table is about crowds, not closures. Twenty-five Mangwon reviews say weekends are packed or advise a weekday, which is 2.3% of its sample, against 0.8% at Gwangjang Market and 0.6% at Namdaemun Market. Eighteen of the 25 are written in Korean, and five of them are about parking.

It is too crowded on weekends, so I recommend visiting on a weekday. — Google Maps review of Mangwon Market, 5 stars, June 2026

no mass crowds on a weekday — Google Maps review of Mangwon Market, 5 stars, October 2024

A weekday helps less at Gwangjang Market. Nine reviews found it full on a weekday too, and seven describe a weekday visit that was calm.

The trade-off: no day is free. Sunday closes the shops at two markets, Monday closes some stalls at the third, and the weekend is when all three are described as crowded.

Methodology

Figures come from the SeoulFoodTour research corpus. This article uses the rated reviews of the three markets for which we hold a representative sample, collected without filtering by rating: 1,458 for Gwangjang Market, 1,376 for Namdaemun Market and 1,089 for Mangwon Market, from Google Maps and TripAdvisor. A second pass aimed at low ratings is never counted here.

What was read. We searched the 3,923 reviews for words about time in every language in the sample, including the days of the week and the words for holidays, and read the 551 that matched, in full, in the language they were written in. Of those, 124 say something about a day or a holiday: 54 at Gwangjang Market, 28 at Namdaemun Market and 42 at Mangwon Market. A review can count in more than one row.

Counts are floors. A reviewer who went on a Sunday and did not say so is not counted. One review that appears twice with identical text is counted once.

Current closing days were not verified. Rest days and holiday closures change, and a review records what was true on the day it was written. Nothing here is a calendar.

Quotations. Every quotation is from a review written in English and is reproduced exactly as it appears in the original record, spelling included. Reviews in other languages are counted and described in our words, never quoted.

What this article does not do. It does not list which stalls close on which day, and it covers three markets, not Seoul.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Is Gwangjang Market open on Sunday?+

Fifteen Gwangjang Market reviews say something is closed on Sunday, and fifteen describe going on a Sunday and finding food and crowds. Nine say both: the shops that sell goods were closed and the food stalls and restaurants were open. Five advise against a Sunday visit, one of them after going for the vintage clothing. We did not check current closing days.

Is Namdaemun Market open on Sunday?+

Eleven Namdaemun Market reviews say Sunday is a rest day or that much of the market is closed. Eight went on a Sunday and found street stalls or food stalls trading, and seven reviews say both. Two advise avoiding Sundays, and three more say that part of the market closes or keeps shorter hours at weekends. We did not check current closing days.

Is Mangwon Market open on Sunday?+

Eleven reviews describe going to Mangwon Market on a Sunday and none reports a closure. Four found it quiet in the morning or around noon, and four found it packed in the afternoon or evening. We did not check current closing days.

Is Mangwon Market closed on Mondays?+

Three reviews, from January 2023, October 2024 and October 2025, say some of the best-known stalls at Mangwon Market close on Mondays. None says the market itself is closed. We did not check current closing days.

Are Seoul markets open during Chuseok and Seollal?+

Twelve reviews describe going to one of the three markets on a public holiday and finding stalls or shops closed. Four name Chuseok, two at Gwangjang Market and two at Mangwon Market. Two name the Lunar New Year, both at Gwangjang Market, and three name New Year’s Day. At Gwangjang Market, five holiday reviews say the food stalls were open.

Which day is best for visiting Seoul’s markets?+

The reviews do not pick one. They say what each day costs: on Sundays the shops at Gwangjang Market and Namdaemun Market are reported closed, on Mondays some well-known Mangwon Market stalls are, and on weekends all three are described as crowded, Mangwon Market most often.