West coast · Taean, South Chungcheong
신두리해수욕장
The largest coastal sand dunes in Korea, protected behind the beach.
Behind Sinduri's beach is the biggest coastal dune field in the country, built up over thousands of years by wind off the Yellow Sea and protected as a natural monument.
Boardwalks cross the dunes so the sand is not trampled, and the plants and insects here exist almost nowhere else in Korea.
Beach photograph by Jjw, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown on the Beaches index; resized.
What else is here
Sinduri is a beach with something behind it that exists nowhere else in the country at this scale: a genuine coastal dune field, built by the wind over thousands of years and protected as a natural monument.
Natural Monument No. 431
Roughly 3.4 km long and up to 1.3 km wide, the largest coastal dune system in Korea. A boardwalk runs through it so you can see the dunes without walking on them — the sand is held together by specialised plants, and footfall destroys them.
Freshwater, behind the sand
A rare freshwater marsh trapped between the dunes and the land, and a Ramsar-listed wetland. It supports species found nowhere else on this coast, and there is a hide for birdwatching.
Taeanhaean park campsites
The national park service runs auto campgrounds on this coast at Mongsanpo and Hakampo, bookable year-round through the Korea National Park Service reservation site. There are private sites closer to Sinduri itself.
Quieter than its neighbours
The sand in front of the dunes is wide, clean and far less busy than Mallipo or Kkotji, partly because there is almost nothing built behind it.
Natural monument
Dunes need three things: a big tidal range that exposes a lot of sand, a strong prevailing onshore wind, and time. The Taean coast has all three, and over roughly fifteen thousand years the north-westerly winter wind has pushed sand inland here into a field several kilometres long.
It is the only substantial coastal dune system left in Korea, which is why it is a designated natural monument and why the access is by boardwalk rather than across the sand. The plants that hold the dunes together — sand sedge, beach vitex, dune goldenrod — are shallow-rooted and do not survive being walked on.
Behind the dunes lies Duung wetland, a freshwater marsh created because the sand cut off drainage to the sea. It is Ramsar-listed and supports a quite different set of species from the salt water a few hundred metres away. The whole thing is a short, flat, genuinely unusual couple of hours.
Daecheon Beach
The mud festival beach — and the west coast's biggest stretch of sand.
Eurwangni Beach
Thirty minutes from Incheon Airport — the easiest beach in Korea to reach on a layover.
Kkotji Beach
Two rocks in the surf that the sun sets between — the classic west-coast sunset.