Manguri Park is the only public cemetery located in Seoul. Built on 490,884 pyong of open land, the cemetery contains 28,500 gravesites. On March. 25, 1973, the park stopped selling gravesites, converting the cemetery into a public park.
Today the park draws a large number of visitors who come to visit the graves of historically significant figures and celebrities. Buried here are Bang Jeong-hwan, the father of the children's movement; Oh Se-chang and Han Yong-un, active in the resistance against the Japanese occupation and two of the thirty-three men who signed the Declaration of Independence; Ji Seok-young, a Korean linguist and
medical doctor who pioneered in the spread of smallpox vaccination; Moon Myoung-hwon, who fought against Japanese occupation and served as Minister of Internal Affairs in the provisional government; Chang Deok-soo, editorial writer of the Dong-Il Daily and a key founding member of the Korea Democracy Party; and Cho Bong-am, a member of the
Constitutional Parliament and a leader of the Progressive Party. In February 1997,
stone epitaphs of the seven patriots and other dignitaries buried in the cemetery were erected alongside a newly paved pedestrian road.
In February 1998, eight additional monuments were erected to honor the eminent poet Park In-hwan, and independence fighters (Moon Il-pyong, Seo Byong-ho, Seo Dong-il, Oh Jae-young, Seo Kwang-cho, and Yu Sang-kyu), as well as the venerable educator, Oh Keum-seon. |
