What Does Korean Money Look Like? Won Coins, Bills, and Who's on Them

South Korean money is the won (원), symbol ₩. It comes in four banknote denominations — 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, and 50,000 won — and four commonly used coin denominations: 10, 50, 100, and 500 won. Each note features a major figure from Korean history, and the colors make them easy to tell apart at a glance.

The four banknotes

• 1,000 won (천원) — blue. Features 이황 (Yi Hwang), a 16th-century Confucian scholar also known by his pen name Toegye.
• 5,000 won (오천원) — red-orange. Features 이이 (Yi I), another 16th-century scholar, pen name Yulgok.
• 10,000 won (만원) — green. Features 세종대왕 (King Sejong the Great), the 15th-century king who commissioned Hangul.
• 50,000 won (오만원) — yellow-gold. Features 신사임당 (Shin Saimdang), the mother of Yi I and the only woman on current Korean currency.

The 50,000 won note is the largest in circulation today. There is no 100,000 won note — for big amounts, people use cashier's checks (수표, supyo).

The coins

• 10 won (십원) — small bronze coin, shows Dabotap pagoda
• 50 won (오십원) — silver, shows a rice plant
• 100 won (백원) — silver, shows Admiral 이순신 (Yi Sun-sin)
• 500 won (오백원) — larger silver, shows a crane

One and five won coins technically exist but are almost never used in daily life.

Quick rough conversions

Exchange rates shift, so treat this as a rule of thumb:

• 1,000 won is roughly the price of a bottle of water or a single ride on the subway base fare
• 10,000 won is roughly the price of a simple lunch at a casual Korean restaurant
• 50,000 won is roughly the price of a group dinner or a nice hanbok rental afternoon

Useful vocabulary

• 돈 (don) — money
• 원 (won) — won (currency unit)
• 지폐 (jipye) — paper money / banknote
• 동전 (dongjeon) — coin
• 현금 (hyeongeum) — cash

A helpful sentence at a store:

• 현금으로 낼게요.hyeongeumeuro naelgeyo. (hyeongeumeuro naelgeyo) — "I'll pay in cash."

Related on Korean TokTok

• Korean Grammar Cheat Sheet
• Hangul Guide in 30 Minutes