Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival

About the festival

Floating lanterns began during the Siege of Jinju, one of the three great victories of the Imjin War, when lanterns were floated on the Namgang River as military signals to soldiers outside the fortress and as messages between families. Carrying on this tradition, Jinju residents held a lantern contest as part of the Gaecheon Arts Festival, Korea’s first regional arts festival, from 1949, and since 2000 it has been held independently as the Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival. The lanterns embody citizens’ wishes for peace, love, happiness and dreams come true, and the festival has grown into a global celebration sharing the value of peace. Every autumn in Jinju, “the city of light and peace”, the spectacle of lanterns across the Namgang River and Jinjuseong Fortress recalls the history behind them.