Did you know the world’s largest drum is in Korea?

You never know what you’ll find in Korea. The world’s largest drum is one thing that you can find in Korea… if you know where to look. Heard of the Yeongdong Nangye Traditional Music Center (영동 난계 국악체험촌)? It’s a pretty cool place established to spread information about the development and achievements of Nangye Park Yeon and promote gugak, or traditional Korean music.

Get ready to learn more about traditional Korean music and also see the largest drum in the world of course… which yes, you can beat on.

Learn more about where to find the largest drum in the world:

• How To Get There
• Basic Info
• What To Know

(This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.)

---

How To Get There

Address: 4 Mountain, Godang-ri, Shimcheon-myeon, Yeongdong-gun, Chungcheongbuk-do (충청북도 영동군 심천면 고당리 산4)

By Bus: From Dong Seoul Bus Terminal, take an intercity bus to Yeongdong Intercity Bus Terminal. 

---

Basic Info

Hours: 9:00am ~ 6:00pm (If you want to drum on the largest drum in the world, the hours are from 10:00am ~ 5:00pm)

Days: Closed Mondays, January 1st, Seollal, Chuseok

Website: Yeongdong Nangye Traditional Music Center (Only in Korean. If you have Chrome, you can use the “Translate this page” function though to understand the information pretty well.)

---

What To Know

Yeongdong is considered to be the birthplace of Korean traditional music, or gugak. Home to gugak virtuoso Nangye Park Yeon (1378 – 1485), and the town is not only home to the Yeongdong Nangye Traditional Music Center (영동 난계 국악체험촌), but they even host the Yeongdong Nangye Korea Traditional Music Festival which a variety of exhibitions and experience programs as well as an Eoga Parade, Jongmyojerye Ritual, and more.

Actually, the Yeongdong Nangye Traditional Music Center is apart of the larger Yeongdong Korean Classical Music Experience Village. Yes, it says village!

In the Yeongdong Gugak Experience Village, visitors can find the Yeongdong Gugak Experience Center, Nangye Gugak Museum, Nangye Traditional Musical Instrument Production Village, Nangye Gugak Instrument Experiece Center, and Nangye Gugakdang. Basically, you won’t be able to walk away without having learned ample information about traditional Korean music andn traditional Korean instruments.

Park Yeon created the theory of Korean traditional music during the Joseon Dynasty and created a number of the traditional Korean instruments you may have seen and is now called “the father of Korean traditional music”.

Be sure to walk around the grounds of the area because the largest drum in the world is on the center grounds but behind the main building. The Cheongu has a Guinness World Record and is 5.54 meters in diameter and 5.96 meters tall. It also weighs 7 tons! If you drum on it three times, you can make a wish too so be sure to ask someone to let you up so your wishes can come true.

Visitors can partake in drum classes to learn more about the varied traditional musical instruments of Korea. There are string, wind, and percussion instruments that people can try as well as watch gugak performances. In the experience section, there are 8 kinds of Korean classical musical instruments on display including the gayageum, geomungo, haegeum, piri, daegeum, pyeonjong, pyeongyeong, and danso. 

For visitors to try, there are 40 types of string instruments including the gayageum and geomungo, 73 wind instruments in addition to the daegeum, 195 types of percussion instruments in addition to the janggu, 10 types of sangmo, 10 types of chaesang, and 10 types of buksang. All of that to say, if you want to experience a traditional Korean instrument, this is definitely the place to do that.

---

Did you like this post? Pin iT!