Three names cover overlapping ground in front of Hongik University, and travel listings use them as though they were three separate places. Red Road is the red-painted route Mapo-gu built through Seogyo-dong: a two-kilometre curve running from the Gyeongui Line Forest Park end down toward the Dangin-ri power station site, with Hongik University Station (Line 2, the Gyeongui-Jungang Line and the Airport Railroad) at the northern end and Sangsu Station (Line 6) near the southern one. Its sections are marked R1, R2, R3 and onward, and Seoul’s official tourism guide publishes a separate page for several of them. Hongdae Walking Street — Geotgo Sipeun Geori, the street you want to walk — is Mapo-gu’s own name for the busking street reached from Exits 8 and 9, on the ground the Red Road scheme labels R2. Hongdae Playground is not a Red Road section at all: it is the park officially called Hongik Culture Park, a block of open space near Sangsu Station, and since its renovation the city presents it as an art park called Drawing Village.
The addresses matter, because the names travel badly between guidebooks. R1 Red Culture Market is at 348-24 Seogyo-dong, about 220 m from Hongik University Station Exit 9. R2 Busking Street is at 347-20 Seogyo-dong, about 170 m from Exit 8. R3 Fashion Street is at 365-9 Seogyo-dong, about 250 m from Exit 9. The park is at 19-3 Wausan-ro 21-gil, about 549 m from Sangsu Station Exit 1, open 10:00 to 18:00, closed Mondays, free to enter.
Two current conditions are worth knowing before you arrive. Riding an electric kickscooter anywhere along R1 to R6 has been prohibited daily between 12:00 and 23:00 since May 2025, and fines have been issued since that September, which affects anyone planning to reach the area on a rented device. And the plaza between R1 and R2 is the planned site of a subway terminus whose construction would run for years.
The red pavement, and how far the R numbers go
The defining feature is literal: the road surface was painted red so that the route reads as one continuous thing. Seoul’s city media puts the walk from end to end at about 25 minutes over a curved two-kilometre course, running from Hongik University Station on Line 2 through to the Sangsu Station area and linking the Gyeongui Line Forest Path to the Dangin-ri power plant. The scheme opened over the weekend of 13 and 14 May 2023 with a Red Road Festival, and five alleys branching off the main line were given their own colours at the same time: orange for the food street, red for the dance street, green for beauty, purple for fashion, brown for coffee.
How many numbered sections exist depends on which document you read, which is why maps disagree. The launch coverage in May 2023 described seven zones, R1 through R7, and Seoul’s city media still treats R7 as the far end. Seoul’s 2025 traffic rule applies to R1 through R6. Mapo-gu’s printed Red Road guide, issued in 2024, was reported to carry section-by-section explanations for R1 through R10. Only R1, R2 and R3 currently have their own entries in Seoul’s English tourism guide. The R markers are signage points along one road rather than a fixed set of districts with settled boundaries: a section number on a poster tells you roughly where along the red surface something is happening, not which neighbourhood you are standing in.
Older naming survives alongside it. Korea’s national tourism agency, describing the same area from an address on Hongik-ro, points visitors toward an ateliers’ street, Picasso’s Street and Club Street, and does not use the R numbering.
R2 is the street Mapo-gu has long called Geotgo Sipeun Geori
Mapo-gu lists Hongdae Walking Street around Eoulmadang-ro, at 348-40 Seogyo-dong, and describes it in plain terms: leave Hongik University Station by Exit 8 or 9, walk straight toward the university campus, and the small street you meet is it. The district’s own description is of a street that fills nightly with buskers who travel in from across the country, and it divides the street into busking zones and exhibition space lettered A to E.
Seoul’s tourism guide puts R2 Busking Street at 347-20 Seogyo-dong, about 170 m from Exit 8. Neither body publishes an explicit equation of the two names, but the addresses are adjacent lot numbers on the same block, the station exits are the same, and both describe the same nightly busking street. Treat R2 and the Walking Street as one street carrying two labelling systems — Mapo-gu’s A-to-E zones and the Red Road’s R numbers — rather than as two destinations.
What happens on it is more organised than the phrase “street performance” suggests. Performances run through a prior registration system, and the genres Seoul lists go beyond music: pop, dance, magic and mime all appear. During the spring and autumn peak seasons the programme adds a Welcome Event for Tourists built around traditional culture experiences.
R1 and R3: the plaza at the top, the shops in the middle
R1 carries the name Red Culture Market and sits at the northern end, closest to the Gyeongui Line Forest Park. Seoul’s guide describes it as a retro-themed space running programmes rather than a permanent market: flea markets, caricature drawing, traditional games and busking performances. R1 and R2 adjoin, both within a short walk of Hongik University Station — R1 220 m from Exit 9, R2 170 m from Exit 8 — and the subway planning documents treat “the central plaza between R1 and R2” as a single location.
R3 is labelled Fashion Street and sits about 250 m from Exit 9, densely packed with clothing and cosmetics shops, with Y2K and balletcore styling prominent and a number of shops known first through social media. This is a concentration rather than an exclusive zone: Korea’s national tourism agency, describing Hongdae as a whole, already lists clothing, cosmetics, living goods and books among what the area sells, so shops of the same kind continue on either side of R3. Seoul’s other well-known cosmetics district works at a different scale: nine Olive Young branches sit inside Myeongdong alone.
Hongdae Playground is Hongik Culture Park, and it is now Drawing Village
The place English-language listings call Hongdae Playground is officially Hongik Culture Park, and the older name Hongik Children’s Park still circulates in guidebooks and map entries. For years its practical function was an open plaza used as a meeting point. It has since been rebuilt as an art park. Seoul’s account of the renovation, published in March 2026, describes six shared studios for resident artists, a Drawing Village creative centre with exhibition space on the ground floor and studio space above, participatory works visitors can draw into — a face-drawing exhibit, and a painted ocean scene people add to — and rebuilt toilets and new seating.
Seoul’s tourism guide lists the site at 19-3 Wausan-ro 21-gil, open 10:00 to 18:00, closed Mondays, free to enter. The station that matters here is Sangsu on Line 6, Exit 1, about 549 m away — not Hongik University Station. Someone told to meet at “Hongdae Playground” and someone told to meet on “Hongdae Walking Street” are being sent to different stations at opposite ends of the Seogyo-dong strip.
The site has a long association with the artists’ market that used to run in the open space. Current official listings describe studios, exhibitions and participatory works; they do not publish a market calendar, so treat any market as an event to check rather than a fixture.
Electric scooters are off-limits on R1 to R6 between noon and 11pm
Since 16 May 2025 the Red Road has been one of Korea’s first two no-kickboard streets, alongside the Banpo academy district in Seocho-gu. The restriction covers R1 through R6 and runs daily from 12:00 to 23:00. It applies to electric kickscooters, electric self-balancing devices and bicycles driven only by an electric motor.
Riding inside the zone during those hours carries a 30,000 won fine and 15 penalty points on ordinary roads, rising to 60,000 won and 30 points inside child protection zones. Devices left parked where they are not allowed are towed at 40,000 won plus 700 won for each 30 minutes of storage. The first five months were a guidance period staffed by a cumulative 120 personnel; enforcement began in September 2025.
Cars are handled separately, and the documented extent is smaller than the scooter ban. The weekend car-free street covers R2 to R4. In December 2023 Mapo-gu was consulting residents and merchants on extending it across the full R1-to-R6 stretch, from Exit 7 of Hongik University Station to the entrance of Eoulmadang-ro, with police coordination planned for early 2024 if the response was positive. No confirmation that the extension took effect has been published, and the announcements did not give fixed hours, so the pedestrianised span on any given weekend is worth confirming locally.
A subway terminus is planned in the plaza between R1 and R2
The Daejang-Hongdae Line, a roughly 20-kilometre route linking Bucheon and Goyang with Seoul’s western districts, is planned to terminate at a provisionally named Station 111 sited in the central plaza between R1 and R2, near Hongik University Station Exits 8 and 10. Construction would last at least six years, with the line expected to be finished around 2031.
The location is contested. Merchants and performers formed an emergency committee against the site and, from July 2025, ran a daily tent protest and a signature campaign, arguing the terminus should be moved out to the main Hongik University intersection near Exit 9; Mapo-gu commissioned its own study and formally backed that position. The land ministry and the construction consortium hold that the alternative is not feasible, because it would leave roughly 600 m between the terminus and the transfer platform against a 180 m guideline. At the most recent reporting, at the end of December 2025, the busking street was still operating as normal.
Sources
Visit Seoul, the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s official tourism guide — Red Road section names, addresses, station exits and walking distances; Hongik Culture Park hours and admission:
Hongdae R1 Red Culture Market
Hongdae R2 Busking Street
Hongdae R3 Fashion Street
Hongdae Playground / Hongik Culture Park
Seoul Metropolitan Government — Red Road route and length, the Drawing Village renovation, and the no-kickboard street rule:
Red Road route and walking time
Hongdae Playground becomes Drawing Village
No-kickboard street, from 16 May 2025
Mapo-gu District Office — Hongdae Walking Street location, access and the A-to-E busking zones:
Mapo-gu tourism, Hongdae area
Korea Tourism Organization — the older street names still in use for the same area:
Hongdae (Hongik University Street)
Korean press — the May 2023 launch festival, the seven numbered zones, the colour-coded side streets, and the proposed car-free expansion:
Maeil Ilbo on the Red Road Festival
Hankyung on the car-free proposal
The Korea Times — the Daejang-Hongdae Line terminus and the dispute over its location:
Will Hongdae’s busking zone survive Seoul’s new rail plan
