Google Maps works in Korea, up to a point. It shows you places, reviews and bus and subway routes, but as of October 2026 it still does not give walking or driving directions here. So install Naver Map or KakaoMap before you land, and when a place won't come up in English, paste its Korean name.
If you read in February that Korea had approved Google's request, that is true. What it approved, and how far that has got since, is the part worth knowing before you plan your first day around it.
What works today?
When the Korea Herald checked in late August 2026, Google Maps in Korea offered place listings, reviews and public transit directions, with no turn-by-turn navigation. The walking parts of a transit route showed up as dotted lines with no guidance along them. Google gave the paper no launch date.
Two days later Google's plan was reported in plainer words: it intends to bring turn-by-turn directions to Korea, which were "simply not available in the country as of today." A US tech site had found the same thing in July: transit support, but no driving, walking or biking directions.
That dotted line is the problem in practice. You can find the restaurant and the subway station nearest to it. The last stretch on foot is yours to work out.
Why does a map need permission to leave Korea?
Article 16 of Korea's Act on the Establishment and Management of Spatial Data says no one may take maps and survey photographs from the state's basic surveys out of the country without the land ministry's permission. Where national security is involved, the ministry decides together with a council that includes defense, foreign affairs and the National Intelligence Service.
Google's side of the story is its own. On its Korea blog in August 2025, the company said route calculation needs the computing power of data centers spread around the world, built to handle requests from two billion users at once. That, Google says, is why it needs the data abroad. The same post describes Korea as the one place where its Maps directions are not offered. Both are Google's own account.
That post has one more detail worth having. Google says the Korean map already in your app was made from the 1:5,000-scale data it has asked to export, through SK TMAP Mobility, inside Korea. The data is already here. The question all along was whether it could leave, and Korea had turned Google's requests down in 2007 and again in 2016.
What did the February approval actually allow?
On 27 February 2026 the land ministry announced it had conditionally approved Google's request to export 1:5,000-scale map data. The decision came out of the government's survey-data export council. The conditions are the part to read:
- Only the minimum needed to run navigation and directions. Sensitive layers such as contour lines are excluded
- The data is processed on servers in Korea and reviewed by the government before it goes
- Military and security sites are masked, including in Street View and Google Earth's historical imagery
- Google sets up a security-incident response system and keeps a responsible person based in Korea
- The data leaves only after the government confirms those conditions are met. A breach can mean suspension or cancellation
Read the last line again. February approved an export with conditions attached. It did not switch anything on in your phone, and one Korean business paper expected the actual export to take at least six months.
Here is how the months since have gone.
| Date | Where it stood |
|---|---|
| 27 Feb 2026 | Conditional approval announced |
| 19 Apr 2026 | The ministry was waiting on written implementation plans for blurring military and security sites, updating the data and revoking access. No follow-up meeting had been held since February |
| 25–27 Aug 2026 | Google was building a Korea team and planning turn-by-turn directions, with no date |
| 22 Sep 2026 | The data had still not been exported. Google's formal response was expected after Chuseok, followed by a technical review and a council meeting |
Read this as October 2026, with one caveat: the latest dated report behind that table is from 22 September. Even from there, the review and the council meeting come before any data leaves, and Google still has to build the feature once it does.
My advice: don't plan your first day around a launch date nobody has given.
What did 1,232 visitors tell the tourism survey?
The figures you will see quoted come from one Korea Tourism Organization survey: 1,232 foreign visitors interviewed in person between 31 October and 6 December 2023, plus 32 longer interviews, published in March 2024. Each number answers a different question, so it matters which one you read.
Which apps did you use during your trip? 56.2% of visitors surveyed used Naver Map and 33.9% used Google Maps. The question allowed more than one answer, and the full report marks the table as multiple response with all 1,232 respondents as the base. The same person could have used both, so it is not a vote between the two.
Which app dissatisfied you most? 30.2% named Google Maps. Naver Map was named by 9.8%, which is worth keeping in mind before treating it as the answer to everything.
What bothered you about Google Maps? The top complaint, at 31.2%, was walking directions and other restricted services. That is a separate question with a separate base from the 30.2%, so the two don't add up to anything.
Note the date, too. These people visited in late 2023, more than two years before the February approval, and the walking gap they described is the one the Korea Herald was still describing in August 2026.
How much English do Naver Map and KakaoMap speak?
Both install from the US App Store. Past that, here is what each company says for itself.
Naver Map. The US App Store listing promises maps in Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese, and "English navigation provided." Naver has said it is the only Korean map service supporting those four languages, with reviews translated into English, Chinese and Japanese. In late 2024 it put out a usage guide for visitors in three languages, with leaflets at Incheon Airport tourist information, the AREX desks and the Myeongdong Welcome Center, and said it would work on the accuracy of multilingual search.
KakaoMap. The US listing gives its languages as English and Korean and describes routes by car, public transport, on foot and by bicycle. It does not say how much of that route guidance comes in English.
The 2023 survey picked this up too. Among complaints about Naver Map, the main one, at 36.4%, was a lack of language support.
And in April 2025 a Korean business daily reported a worse case. In Naver Map's English version, choosing "Emergency care" pointed to a distant underground shelter rather than a hospital. KakaoMap showed the category in Korean, 응급진료, untranslated. That was April 2025. If you are using an English category search for anything that matters, look at what it actually returns before you set off.
When the English name finds nothing
This is where the Korean name earns its place. A user quoted by the Korea Times in April 2025 said Naver Map "works when the name of the store is pasted in Korean but struggles to identify the English name when typed in." Naver's reply in the same piece: "There are many areas where English data hasn't been properly established yet."
So search in English first. If nothing comes up, or the wrong thing does, paste the Korean name. When someone sends you an address in Korea, ask for the place's name in Korean along with it.
One more word for the same reason. Both apps' Korean store descriptions use 길찾기, gilchatgi, "finding the way," for the directions feature. It is a useful word to recognize.
The short version
Save this before you fly.
- Google Maps in Korea gives places, reviews and transit routes. Walking and driving directions were not offered as of the August 2026 reports
- The February 2026 decision approved an export with conditions. As of 22 September the data had not left Korea
- Install Naver Map or KakaoMap before you land. Both are on the US App Store
- Their English has limits. Naver itself said in 2025 that English data wasn't properly established yet in many areas
- English name finds nothing? Paste the Korean name
- Directions, in Korean: 길찾기, gilchatgi
Send this to whoever is packing only Google Maps.
Paying for the ride has its own set of rules. If you want a first walk to try the apps on, the Seoul City Wall is a good one.
Do it with a local Akasha, an app for finding local meetups and experiences in Korea, is where people list what's happening nearby on the day you're actually free, sound baths to Sunday hikes, alongside trips from registered Korean travel companies: iOS / Android
One question for the comments, and I do read them: what was the place you couldn't find in English and then found in Korean?
Who wrote this. I run Akasha and write this blog from Seoul. For this piece I read the statute, the government's February briefing and the reporting since, checked the tourism survey's full report for how its main table was counted, and opened both apps' store listings on 4 October 2026. More at @akasha.korea.
Sources
- Act on the Establishment and Management of Spatial Data, Article 16, National Law Information Center (version in force from 2026-07-01): https://www.law.go.kr/DRF/lawService.do?OC=test&target=law&type=XML&LM=공간정보의%20구축%20및%20관리%20등에%20관한%20법률&JO=001600 (read 2026-10-04)
- Korea.kr policy briefing, conditional approval of Google's 1:5,000 map export, 2026-02-27: https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148960112
- ZDNet Korea on the export council's decision, 2026-02-27: https://zdnet.co.kr/view/?no=20260227120235
- Herald Business on the scope and expected timing, 2026-02-27: https://biz.heraldcorp.com/article/10684070
- Korea Herald on the stalled implementation plans, 2026-04-19: https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10720446
- Korea Herald on Google's Korea team and current features, 2026-08-25: https://m.koreaherald.com/article/10851560
- 9to5Google on the turn-by-turn plan, 2026-08-27: https://9to5google.com/2026/08/27/google-maps-turn-by-turn-navigation-south-korea/
- BGR on directions still unavailable, 2026-07-07: https://www.bgr.com/2207179/why-google-maps-doesnt-work-south-korea/
- Electronic Times on the export review after Chuseok, 2026-09-22: https://www.etnews.com/20260922000356
- Google Korea blog, Q&A on the map data export, 2025-08-05: https://blog.google/intl/ko-kr/company-news/inside-google/google-maps-data-export-qa-kr/
- Korea Tourism Organization, travel app survey of foreign visitors, released 2024-03-05: https://knto.or.kr/pressRelease/548099 · full report (p.178): https://datalab.visitkorea.or.kr/site/portal/ex/bbs/View.do?cbIdx=1129&bcIdx=306890
- Naver press releases, 2024-10-02 and 2024-12-30: https://navercorp.com/media/pressReleasesDetail?seq=32066 · https://www.navercorp.com/en/media/pressReleasesDetail?seq=32212
- App Store (US) listings for Naver Map and KakaoMap (read 2026-10-04): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/naver-map-navigation/id311867728 · https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kakaomap-korea-no-1-map/id304608425
- App Store (Korea) listings, for the feature name 길찾기 (read 2026-10-04): https://apps.apple.com/kr/app/id311867728 · https://apps.apple.com/kr/app/%EC%B9%B4%EC%B9%B4%EC%98%A4%EB%A7%B5-%EB%8C%80%ED%95%9C%EB%AF%BC%EA%B5%AD-no-1-%EC%A7%80%EB%8F%84%EC%95%B1/id304608425
- Herald Business on the apps' English versions, 2025-04-17: https://biz.heraldcorp.com/article/10467936
- Korea Times on local maps and foreign users, 2025-04-18: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/amp/business/tech-science/20250418/local-maps-gain-popularity-but-leave-foreigners-unsatisfied
Photograph: Pexels licensed work.