Byeonsanbando

Byeonsanbando National Park was declared in 1988 in North Jeolla province, on the Byeonsan peninsula, on the western coast of South Korea. At 153 km² it is a park of medium size, and it is unusual within the Korean system: it is the only one that combines a mountain sector and a maritime-coastal sector in a single unit.

The inland part, known as Naebyeonsan, is a massif of modest summits but rugged relief, with narrow valleys, waterfalls such as Jikso and temperate forests of red pine and broadleaves. It holds historic Buddhist temples, among them Naesosa, with its unpainted wooden architecture and its carved doors.

The coastal part, Oebyeonsan, comprises cliffs, rock formations eroded by the sea such as those at Chaeseokgang, where the sedimentary strata appear stacked like the volumes of a library, and sandy beaches. The salt marshes and tidal flats around it form part of the west coast wetland system that supports bird migration across the Yellow Sea, although the building of the Saemangeum seawall, to the north, profoundly transformed that coastline and drastically reduced the tidal habitat of the area.