Yongdusan Park and Busan Tower: Hours, Tickets, Views

A hill in the middle of the old downtown

Yongdusan Park sits on a small hill directly above Nampo-dong, close enough to BIFF Square and Gukje Market that it works as a rest stop between the two rather than a separate trip. The park itself has no gate and no admission charge — it's a shaded walk up (or an escalator, covered below) to a plaza with a bell, a flower clock, and the tower that gives the area its skyline.

The tower is the part most visitors come for specifically. Busan Tower, 120 meters tall, opened in October 1973 as the tallest tower in the country — a title it held until N Seoul Tower was completed two years later. It closed briefly in 2021 during a change of operator and reopened that December after a renovation, which is the version standing today.

Getting there — and the shortcut worth knowing

From Jungang Station on Metro Line 1, Exit 1 puts you on a roughly 6-minute walk to the park entrance. From Nampo Station, Exit 7 is about 7 minutes. Both routes are uphill but shaded most of the way.

If stairs aren't appealing, look for the escalator entrance near the station rather than the main pedestrian path — it carries you most of the way up the hill and is the route locals use rather than the postcard staircase most visitors default to.

What's in the park itself

The Citizens' Bell (시민의 종), funded by public donations, sits beneath a pavilion near the entrance and is rung each New Year's Eve as part of the city's countdown ceremony. Nearby, the park's flower clock is one of its more photographed small landmarks — a functioning clock face set into a planted flower bed.

Past those, the plaza opens onto the tower itself, along with benches and shade that make the park a reasonable break even for visitors who skip the tower ticket entirely.

Busan Tower: tickets and hours

The tower runs 10:00 to 22:00 every day of the year, with the last ticket sold at 21:30. Adult admission (age 13 and up) is 12,000 KRW, child admission (36 months to 12 years) and senior admission (65 and up) are both 9,000 KRW, and children under 36 months enter free.

The observation deck is on the 5th floor, with an augmented-reality photo experience on the 4th floor and an exhibition hall on the 2nd. At night, the tower runs a projection-mapping light show on its exterior, and the AR feature lets visitors shoot a short clip with an animated character overlaid on the view.

What the view actually shows

From the deck, the sightlines take in Busan Port and the Busan Port Bridge, Yeongdo Bridge, and Bongnaesan on Yeongdo Island across the water. On a clear day, visibility stretches as far as Haeundae's Marine City towers in the distance — though on an average hazier day, the close-in port and old-downtown view is still the main draw, not the long-distance one.

Because the tower sits over a working port and old city center rather than a beach or a newer district, the view reads differently from Busan X the Sky in Haeundae — this is Busan's original working harbor, cranes and ferries included, not a skyline of new towers.

Combining with the rest of Nampo-dong

Yongdusan Park's real advantage is location: it sits directly above the neighborhood most first-time visitors already spend an afternoon in. Gukje Market and BIFF Square are both a short walk downhill, and Jagalchi Market is close enough to fold into the same outing.

A reasonable order for a first visit: start at the market or BIFF Square, walk up to the park in the afternoon shade, and decide once you're at the plaza whether the tower ticket is worth it for that day's visibility.