Korea's dinosaur fossils: what turned up, and where?

Look for places in Korea to see dinosaur fossils with a child and Goseong, Haenam, Hwaseong, Boseong and Yeosu all come up at once, but whether footprints, eggs or bones turned up differs from place to place. After reading this you will be able to tell which site holds what, and, when you plan a trip, to set aside the facilities that are closed in autumn 2026 and know what to check before you go.

Names, dates and figures are as of 22 October 2026.

DINO NOTES

Footprints, eggs, bones: where each turned up

Natural Monument sites and named dinosaur bones

• Footprints

  • Goseong Deokmyeong-ri: dinosaur and bird tracks
  • Yeosu Nangdo-ri area: 3,546 tracks, an 84 m trackway
  • Haenam Uhang-ri: dinosaur, pterosaur and webbed bird tracks

• Eggs

  • Hwaseong Gojeong-ri: about 20 nests, about 180 eggs
  • Boseong Bibong-ri: about 10 nests
  • Boseong's largest nest is 1.5 m across

• Bones and named dinosaurs

  • Near Jeongok Port, Hwaseong: Koreaceratops (ceratopsian)
  • Boseong Bibong-ri: Koreanosaurus (ornithopod)
  • Hadong: Pukyongosaurus (sauropod, preliminary report)
  • Dinosaur bones also at Haenam Uhang-ri

Counts follow the Korea Heritage Service and differ between sources; Hwaseong City's geopark page gives over 200 eggs for the Sihwa Lake area. Checked 22 October 2026.

Footprints: Goseong Deokmyeong-ri, Yeosu Nangdo-ri and Haenam Uhang-ri

The Natural Monument "Goseong Deokmyeong-ri Dinosaur and Bird Footprint Fossil Site" on the south coast was designated in 1999. The Korea Heritage Service describes it as one of the world's notable sites for the number and variety of its dinosaur footprints and as the world's largest Mesozoic bird-footprint fossil site. A rock called Sangjogam and sea caves carved by seawater are also here. No footprint count is given for Deokmyeong-ri alone; across Goseong County as a whole, some 5,000 dinosaur footprints have been found so far.

The "Yeosu Nangdo-ri Dinosaur Footprint Fossil Site" (designated 2003) spans five islands of Hwajeong-myeon in Yeosu: Sado, Chudo, Nangdo, Mokdo and Jeokgeumdo. Surveys found 3,546 dinosaur footprints in all, and of the five islands Chudo has the most, 1,759. An 84 m trackway, a line of consecutive footprints left by one animal, was also found.

The "Haenam Uhang-ri Dinosaur, Pterosaur and Bird Footprint Fossil Site" (designated 1998) is named for the three kinds of tracks found there, and dinosaur bones have turned up as well. Two kinds of webbed bird footprints and pterosaur footprints lie together in the same layer, estimated at about 83 to 85 million years old; the Korea Heritage Service describes them as the world's oldest webbed bird footprints and the first pterosaur tracks found in Asia. The pterosaur tracks were found in 1996 and measure 20 to 35 cm, and a 2002 journal paper named them Haenamichnus uhangriensis.

What a footprint fossil shows directly is the shape and size of a foot and the spacing of its steps. Footprints get trace-fossil names of their own, like Haenamichnus, separate from the scientific names of animals. The Korea Heritage Service describes the pterosaur and bird tracks in one layer as the first case showing that the two shared a habitat; that is an interpretation drawn from the tracks lying together.

Eggs: Hwaseong Gojeong-ri and Boseong Bibong-ri

The "Hwaseong Gojeong-ri Dinosaur Egg Fossil Site" in Gyeonggi-do was designated in 2000. Its eggs and nests lie in Cretaceous sediments estimated at about 83 to 85 million years old, and were found at six or seven spots that were islands before the Sihwa Lake tidal flats were created. About 20 nests, each 50 to 60 cm across, held five or six eggs apiece and up to 12, and the eggs are 11 to 12 cm in diameter, the largest 14 cm. The total differs by source: about 180 eggs according to the Korea Heritage Service, while Hwaseong City's geopark page says more than 200 have been found in the Sihwa Lake area.

The "Boseong Bibong-ri Dinosaur Egg Fossil Site" was also designated in 2000. It has about 10 nests; the largest is 1.5 m across, the eggs measure 9 to 15 cm and the shells are 1.5 to 2.5 mm thick. The egg count differs between sources: about 100 in the Korea Heritage Service designation text, about 150 on the heritage portal's World Heritage tentative-list page.

Bones and the dinosaurs that got names

Koreaceratops hwaseongensis is a ceratopsian from Hwaseong; its Natural Monument name calls it a "horned dinosaur". In 2008 a Hwaseong city official cleaning up around the Jeongok Port seawall found the bones of its lower body, the hip, tail, both lower legs and feet, still in place, and a 2011 journal paper (online in November 2010) described it as a new genus and species of basal neoceratopsian. The sources date it differently: the paper places it in the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous, the Korea Heritage Service at about 120 million years ago. Presented by the Korea Heritage Service as the first ceratopsian fossil found on the Korean peninsula, the skeleton became on 7 October 2022 the first dinosaur skeleton designated a Natural Monument, under the name "Hwaseong horned dinosaur (Koreaceratops hwaseongensis) skeletal fossil".

Koreanosaurus boseongensis comes from Bibong-ri in Boseong. A team from Chonnam National University's Korea Dinosaur Research Center first found part of the skeleton at the Bibong-ri dinosaur egg site in May 2003, and a 2011 paper described it as a new genus and species of basal ornithopod from the Late Cretaceous. The skeleton became the Natural Monument "Boseong ornithopod dinosaur (Koreanosaurus boseongensis) skeletal fossil" on 4 September 2026, and its recorded location is the university's Korea Dinosaur Research Center. Whether the public can see it there could not be confirmed.

Pukyongosaurus millenniumi is the name given to sauropod bones from the Hasandong Formation (Early Cretaceous) on a rocky islet off Galsa-ri in Hadong County, on the south coast. It was presented at the Chinese Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Beijing in 2001, and the species name marks the new millennium, the year 2000. The name first appeared not in a journal paper but in a preliminary report in the meeting's proceedings. That is lighter evidence than for the two dinosaurs above, and whether the name is still accepted as a separate species could not be confirmed for this note. For a child, "a sauropod named in a preliminary report" is the accurate way to put it.

Natural Monuments, geoparks and the World Heritage Tentative List

The five fossil sites took their current names under a notice of 26 July 2021, and some county and city pages still use the old ones. As of 22 October 2026, only Hwaseong of the five is in a national geopark: Hwaseong National Geopark, certified on 29 February 2024, counts the Gojeong-ri egg site among its geosites. Goseong County labels Sangjogam County Park a "national geopark candidate site".

In 2002 the heritage administration (then the Cultural Heritage Administration) placed the "dinosaur fossil sites along the southern coast" on UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List. Its components are the Haenam, Boseong, Hwasun and Yeosu fossil sites and the Goseong Deokmyeong-ri site; Hwaseong is not among them. In January 2008 these sites were nominated together as the "Korean Cretaceous Dinosaur Coast", but on the heritage portal on 22 October 2026 the entry is still on the Tentative List. So "on the World Heritage Tentative List" is accurate, and "a World Heritage Site" is not. On that entry the portal describes Korea as the world's largest Cretaceous dinosaur-footprint fossil area, and the southern-coast sites as a perfectly preserved dinosaur-egg fossil area notable for the world's largest pterosaur footprint fossils and the oldest webbed footprints.

DINO NOTES

Designations and names by year

From protected sites to protected skeletons

• 1998–2003 · Five sites designated

  • 1998 Haenam Uhang-ri
  • 1999 Goseong Deokmyeong-ri
  • 2000 Hwaseong Gojeong-ri, Boseong Bibong-ri
  • 2003 Yeosu Nangdo-ri

• 2001–2011 · Names for the bones

  • 2001 Pukyongosaurus, conference preliminary report
  • 2008 Ceratopsian bones found in Hwaseong
  • 2011 Koreaceratops and Koreanosaurus papers in print

• 2002 and 2008 · World Heritage steps

  • 2002 southern-coast fossil sites on the Tentative List
  • 2008 nominated as 'Korean Cretaceous Dinosaur Coast'
  • Still shown as tentative on the portal in October 2026

• 2021–2026 · New names, protected skeletons

  • 2021 the five sites renamed
  • 2022 Koreaceratops skeleton made a Natural Monument
  • 2024 Hwaseong certified as a national geopark
  • 4 Sep 2026 Koreanosaurus skeleton made a Natural Monument

Checked 22 October 2026.

Autumn 2026: what you can visit now

The Dinosaur Egg Fossil Site Visitor Center, run by Hwaseong City, opens Tuesday to Sunday from 09:00 to 17:00 (10:00 to 17:00 in winter, with the winter dates not given) according to its visitor guide, closes on Mondays, 1 January and the Seollal (Lunar New Year) and Chuseok holidays, and charges no admission. The Korea Heritage Service record gives this center as the location of the Koreaceratops skeleton, but the guide is undated, so check before you set off that the center is open and that the skeleton is on display.

The Haenam Dinosaur Museum opened in 2007 to preserve and present the Uhang-ri site. It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 09:00 to 18:00 (last entry an hour before closing) and closed on Mondays. Individual tickets cost 5,000 won for adults (19 to 64), 4,000 won for youths (13 to 18), soldiers and police, and 3,000 won for children aged 5 to 12; children aged 4 and under and visitors aged 65 and over get in free. Paying visitors get half the admission fee back in Haenam local gift vouchers.

The exhibition hall at Bibong Dinosaur Park in Boseong has been closed since 21 October 2026, when its operation ended. The egg site is about 1 km from the park; a small outdoor exhibit and a viewing deck were built there in 2007, but whether they are open now could not be confirmed.

The Yeosu Nangdo-ri site is spread over five islands. Yeosu City's tourism page gives 1 hour 30 minutes by boat from the Yeosu port pier to Sado port and free admission, but the page is undated, so check how to reach the island you want and the sailing times before you set off.

Goseong Dinosaur Museum is closed for remodeling from 1 January to 31 December 2026 (the dates may change with the works). The Sangjogam County Park trails and sea caves stay open meanwhile.

DINO NOTES

Autumn 2026: what is open, what is not

Hwaseong on the west coast, then the south coast from west to east

• Hwaseong · Egg site visitor center

  • Tue–Sun 09:00–17:00
  • Winter 10:00–17:00
  • Closed Mon, 1 Jan, Seollal, Chuseok
  • Free admission
  • Koreaceratops skeleton: ask if on show

• Haenam · Haenam Dinosaur Museum

  • Tue–Sun 09:00–18:00, closed Mondays
  • Last entry one hour before closing
  • Adults 5,000 won, children 3,000 won
  • Free for ages 4 and under, 65 and over

• Boseong · Bibong Dinosaur Park

  • Exhibition hall closed from 21 Oct 2026
  • Egg site about 1 km from the park
  • Viewing deck at the site: unconfirmed

• Yeosu · Nangdo-ri site (five islands)

  • Boat from Yeosu port to Sado port
  • takes 1 h 30 min
  • Free admission, per Yeosu City
  • Check routes and sailing times first

• Goseong · Goseong Dinosaur Museum

  • Closed for remodeling all of 2026
  • Dates may change with the works
  • Sangjogam trails, sea caves open

Per the official county, city and museum pages on 22 October 2026. Opening details change, so check again before you set off.

If you can pick only one place this autumn, start from what you want to see. For the dinosaur egg site and the visitor center recorded as the home of the Koreaceratops skeleton, go to Hwaseong; for the Uhang-ri site and its museum, Haenam; for a walk along the coast with Sangjogam and its sea caves, the Sangjogam County Park trails in Goseong. Before setting off, check whether the skeleton is on show in Hwaseong and, wherever you go, the opening details.