Where Was Squid Game Filmed? Seoul Locations You Can Visit in Korea (and the Sets and Island You Can't)

Last updated: 5 October 2026. Every location, fare and opening time below was checked against Seoul city, Netflix and venue sources in October 2026. Three things changed since we first wrote this page: the park at the ddakji station is hosting a garden expo this month, Sangbong bus terminal from Season 1 has been demolished, and there is no Squid Game experience or pop-up running in Korea this autumn.

Every Squid Game fan eventually asks whether they can stand in the Red Light, Green Light arena. You can't. The game rooms were sets built on soundstages in Daejeon, and none of them is open to visitors. What you can visit is a short list of ordinary Seoul places the show used for its outside-world scenes. They include a subway station whose sign is the one on screen, Gi-hun's neighbourhood, the park where the Recruiter buys his bread, and a bridge from Season 2.

This page sorts the two: what was a set, what is a real street, how to reach each place by subway, and what it costs in October 2026.

Planning a Seoul day around the locations: Lonely Planet Seoul on AmazonAffiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, EpicKor earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Quick Guide: Squid Game Locations in Korea, October 2026

Seoul subway base fare: ₩1,550 on a transit card (₩1,650 cash) since 28 June 2025. The Sinbundang Line charges a little more.

The games were never real rooms

The game sets were built on soundstages. Production designer Chae Kyoung-sun has said the team rented three or four studios and spent about two months building before filming started, and that every space in the game world was a set, not a real location.

The best-documented of those studios is Studio Cube (스튜디오 큐브), at Daejeon Expo Science Park, about an hour south of Seoul by KTX. The material the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) released in 2021 lists five Season 1 sets built there: the maze-like corridors the players walk through, the tug-of-war platform, the dalgona room, the marbles alley and the glass stepping-stone bridge. The giant doll's arena and the dormitory are not on that list, and no official source says where they were built.

Studio Cube opened on 25 September 2017. It was built by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOCCA as Korea's largest public production studio, with one large stage of 3,755 m² and a 19 m ceiling, plus four mid-size stages. A large virtual-production studio was added in December 2025. There are no public tours and we found no programme offering one. You can walk the science park and see the building from outside, and Hanbit Tower's observatory in the park is free (closed on Mondays). If an article promises you can "tour the Squid Game set", it is wrong.

The real locations you can stand in

These are the places Netflix's own location guide or Seoul city's list name, plus two Season 2 spots widely reported by location guides. We give each one's Korean name, because that is what you type into Naver Map or Kakao Map.

Yangjae Citizen's Forest Station: the ddakji scene, and a garden expo this month

The recruitment scene, where a stranger in a suit slaps Gi-hun over a game of ddakji, was shot on the platform of Yangjae Citizen's Forest Station (양재시민의숲역) on the Sinbundang Line. The station sign on screen, "양재시민의숲 (매헌) / Yangjae Citizen's Forest (Maeheon)", is still the sign you see today.

The park above it was renamed Maeheon Citizens' Forest (매헌시민의숲) in September 2022, after the independence activist Yun Bong-gil. It is free and open around the clock. This month it is hosting the 2026 Seoul International Garden Expo (서울국제정원박람회) from 1 to 27 October 2026, with about 50 gardens, a programme from 12:00 to 19:00 and guided tours at 13:00, 15:00 and 17:00. Use exit 1 or 5. So October is the best time this year to combine the station with something to do.

Ssangmun-dong and Baegun Market: Gi-hun's neighbourhood

Gi-hun and Sang-woo grew up in Ssangmun-dong (쌍문동) in Dobong-gu, north-east Seoul, and Seoul city's location list puts several scenes there. Baegun Market (백운시장), a small market of about 60 stalls, has the fish shop that plays Sang-woo's mother's, 팔도건어물. The convenience store where Gi-hun and Oh Il-nam drink soju is a CU in the same area.

Take Line 4 to Ssangmun Station (쌍문역). Baegun Market is near Solbat Park Station on the Ui LRT. Dobong-gu opened a small Squid Game experience space in the market in November 2021; we could not confirm it is still open, so don't make it the reason for the trip. This is a residential neighbourhood. Walk it quietly and buy something at the market rather than filming the stall owners.

Namsan: the walking trail, and your N Seoul Tower trip

Seoul city's list places the scene where the players go their separate ways, after voting to stop the games in episode 2, on the Namsan walking trail (남산 산책로). If you are going up to N Seoul Tower anyway, it is on your way.

From Myeongdong Station (Line 4), exit 3 is a 7–8 minute walk uphill to the cable car, and exit 4 leads to the free Namsan Oreumi incline lift. The park is free. The cable car is ₩15,000 return (₩12,000 one way) and runs 10:00–23:00. The tower observatory is ₩29,000 for adults. Weekend cable-car queues can take one to two hours. Our Namsan cable car and tower guide has the details.

You might like: Yongwangsan Skywalk vs N Seoul Tower: Seoul's Free New Night View

Tapgol Park: the Season 2 opener

Season 2 opens with the Recruiter (Gong Yoo) offering homeless men bread or a lottery ticket, then stamping on the bread, in Tapgol Park (탑골공원) in Jongno, a small park best known as the place where the 1919 independence declaration was read out. Seoul city's Season 2 location list confirms it.

The closest station is Jongno 3-ga (종로3가역, Lines 1, 3 and 5), exit 1, a few minutes' walk. Entry is free. It is open 09:00–18:00 from March to October and 09:00–17:00 from November to February. Jongno-gu made it an alcohol-free zone in December 2025; drinking there has carried a ₩100,000 fine since 1 April 2026.

Seoul Grand Park: Season 2 workplaces

Location guides place the scenes introducing Park Gyeong-seok and Kang No-eul at work in Seoul Grand Park (서울대공원). The park is not in Seoul itself: it is in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, just south of the city, on Line 4 at Seoul Grand Park Station (대공원역).

The zoo costs ₩5,000 for adults (₩3,000 for teenagers, ₩2,000 for children; under-5s and over-65s free) and is open 09:00–18:00 in September and October, 09:00–17:00 from November to February, with last entry an hour before closing. The park's notice says the sky lift stops running in December 2026, so ride it this autumn if you want to.

Seogang Bridge: the Season 2 car chase

Season 2's car chase was reported to be filmed on Seogang Bridge (서강대교), the red-arched bridge between Mapo and western Yeouido, over Bamseom islet.

For the north end, take Line 6 to Gwangheungchang Station (광흥창역). The bridge has a sidewalk, so you can walk across to Yeouido in about 20 minutes and pick up the next location there. (Earlier versions of this page said Hapjeong or Dangsan. Those stations are at Yanghwa Bridge, one bridge west.)

Yeouido and IFC Mall

Yeouido is Seoul's financial district on an island in the Han River. English-language location guides place Season 1 scenes outside the IFC towers, but we found no Korean or Netflix source that pins down which scenes, so treat this as reported. Either way, the skyline is one of Seoul's most recognisable. IFC Mall (IFC몰) is a normal mall open 10:00–22:00, reached underground from Yeouido Station (Lines 5 and 9): follow the IFC Mall signs. Yeouido Hangang Park is a short walk away.

The places you can't visit

Sangbong Terminal is gone. The bus terminal where Gi-hun bets on the horses, wins, and loses the money to Sae-byeok in episode 1 was Sangbong Terminal (상봉터미널) in Jungnang-gu. Both Netflix and Seoul city list it. The terminal closed after approval in 2023 and has been demolished. Since 2025 the site has been a construction site for a 49-storey mixed-use complex. Any guide that sends you there is out of date.

The island. Many English articles say the island exteriors were filmed on Seongapdo (선갑도), a small, privately owned island off Incheon in the Yellow Sea. We could not find a Korean news report, a Netflix statement or an Ongjin County source confirming it, so treat it as widely repeated rather than confirmed. Either way, there is no scheduled ferry and no legal way to land as a tourist.

Season 3 (released 27 June 2025) added no publicly documented Seoul locations; the games stayed on soundstages.

Is there a Squid Game experience in Korea now?

Not this autumn. We found no Squid Game event, pop-up or exhibition running or announced in Korea as of October 2026. Here is what has happened, so you can tell old news from current:

• Squid Game: The Experience, Netflix's ticketed attraction where you play safe versions of the games, did run in Seoul, in Seongsu-dong, and ended on 25 June 2025. Its Tokyo run closed on 31 August 2026, Istanbul opened in April 2026, and the next new city is Jakarta, from 16 October 2026.
• Seoul's K-Content Seoul Travel Week ran a Squid Game parade and pop-up from 28 June to 6 July 2025.
• The Korea Tourism Organization and Netflix announced a tourism partnership on 12 June 2025. Its "Better Run" ad with the pink-suited guards launched on 3 July 2025, and the campaign's six videos passed about 370 million views. KTO's "Special Travel Day with Squid Game" was a one-off, invite-only event on 16 October 2025 for 82 foreign visitors chosen from more than 4,000 applicants. There has been no repeat in 2026.
• HiKR Ground, KTO's free culture centre in central Seoul, has no Squid Game content now. Its floors were rearranged in early 2026.

So the honest plan is the locations themselves, plus the garden expo at Yangjae Citizen's Forest this month.

Planning a Squid Game day in Seoul

The Seoul locations fit one day if you go in this order. Start with Yangjae Citizen's Forest in the morning (Sinbundang Line, and the garden expo opens at 12:00 in October). Take Line 4 north to Myeongdong for the Namsan trail, then walk or ride to Jongno 3-ga for Tapgol Park before it closes. End on Seogang Bridge for the evening view across to Yeouido. Ssangmun-dong and Seoul Grand Park are at opposite ends of Line 4, so save them for a second day. Daejeon is only worth the trip if you want to see the outside of the studio building. With KTX it is about an hour each way, but there is nothing to see inside.

Why filming-location tourism is big in Korea

This is not only a Squid Game pattern. A report cited by the Korea Herald, based on LG Uplus data covering about 80 Seoul attractions visited by 1.6 million foreign tourists in 2021, found that 57.6% of those attractions were Netflix Korean-drama filming locations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where was Squid Game filmed? The game sets were built on rented soundstages; five of them were at Studio Cube in Daejeon Expo Science Park. The outside-world scenes were filmed at real places in and around Seoul: Yangjae Citizen's Forest Station, Ssangmun-dong, the Namsan walking trail and Sangbong Terminal in Season 1, and Tapgol Park in Season 2, with Seoul Grand Park and Seogang Bridge widely reported.

Q: Can you visit the Squid Game set? No. Studio Cube is a working production facility with no public tours, and the sets were built for filming. You can walk the public grounds of Daejeon Expo Science Park, about an hour from Seoul by KTX, and see the building from outside.

Q: Can you visit the Squid Game island? No. English articles name Seongapdo, a privately owned island off Incheon, but no Korean or Netflix source confirms it, and there is no scheduled ferry or legal way to land there as a tourist.

Q: Which subway station is in Squid Game? Yangjae Citizen's Forest Station (양재시민의숲역) on the Sinbundang Line, where the ddakji recruitment scene in episode 1 was filmed. The same station sign is still there.

Q: Is Squid Game: The Experience in Korea? Not now. It ran in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, and ended on 25 June 2025. As of October 2026 nothing is running or announced in Korea; the next new city is Jakarta, from 16 October 2026.

Q: Were there new Seoul locations in Squid Game season 3? None have been publicly documented. Season 3's games stayed on soundstages.

Sources and Further Reading

• Netflix Tudum: Squid Game locations guide
• Seoul Metropolitan Government media hub: Squid Game locations in Seoul (10 Nov 2021); Season 2 locations; 2026 Seoul International Garden Expo; Maeheon Citizens' Forest renaming; HiKR Ground floors, Feb 2026; K-Content Seoul Travel Week, 2025.
• Studio Cube sets (KOCCA material): Pressian, 26 Oct 2021; virtual-production studio: Herald Kyungje, 2 Dec 2025.
• Variety: Squid Game's production design
• Sangbong Terminal redevelopment: Segye Ilbo, 13 Mar 2025.
• Seoul Grand Park fees and hours: grandpark.seoul.go.kr (read 5 Oct 2026).
• Netflix and KTO partnership: Netflix newsroom; campaign views: Herald Kyungje, 15 Oct 2025.
• Squid Game: The Experience in Seoul: The Fact.
• Subway fare from 28 June 2025: eToday.
• Korea Herald: Netflix filming locations dominate Seoul tourist attractions
• EpicKor: Namsan cable car and N Seoul Tower · N Seoul Tower guide · Netflix K-drama watch-first guide