Most foreigners learn about Korea's two giant holidays — Seollal and Chuseok — pretty quickly. But there's a third one that was once just as important and has quietly faded from everyday life: Dano (단오). For centuries it was one of Korea's three great seasonal festivals, a midsummer day of swings, wrestling, fragrant herbs and warding off bad luck for the hot months ahead.
Today it's no longer a public holiday and many younger Koreans barely mark it — but it survives in beautiful, surprising ways, above all in the UNESCO-listed Gangneung Danoje festival. Here's the full story.
Dano is an ancient Korean midsummer festival celebrating the start of summer and praying for health and a good harvest — held on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month (so the date shifts each year, usually falling in late May or June), and famous for swings, ssireum wrestling, and washing your hair in iris water.
What is Dano?
Dano (단오) — also called Surit-nal (수릿날) — falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, a date traditionally seen as full of bright, masculine "yang" energy. It marked a natural pause in the farming year: the spring planting was done, the hardest summer work hadn't yet begun, and the community took a day to rest, play and pray for good health and a strong harvest.
Historically, Dano was ranked alongside Seollal and Chuseok as one of Korea's three biggest festivals. It was especially important in farming villages, and many of its customs are about protection — driving away the bad luck, illness and insects that the hot, humid summer was thought to bring.
The main Dano traditions
The food of Dano
Like every Korean festival, Dano has its own seasonal foods, tied to the early-summer plants available at the time.
🍡 Surichwi-tteok — the signature rice cake
The dish most tied to Dano is surichwi-tteok (수리취떡), a chewy rice cake made with surichwi, an aromatic mountain herb that turns it green. It was traditionally stamped with a wheel pattern — the word "suri" relates to "wheel," and Dano was sometimes called the "wheel day," with the cakes pressed using a cartwheel-shaped mould.
🍒 Early-summer treats
Dano also fell at the start of the cherry and plum season, so seasonal fruit featured too, along with aengmi-tteok and cooling drinks. The whole point was to enjoy the freshest produce of early summer before the heat set in.
Gangneung Danoje — Dano still alive
If you want to actually experience Dano today, there's one place above all: Gangneung, on the east coast. The Gangneung Danoje (강릉단오제) is by far the largest and most famous Dano celebration in Korea — a sprawling festival held over several days around Dano, and one of the country's oldest continuous folk traditions.
It's far more than a market. At its heart are ancient shamanic and Confucian rituals praying for the safety and prosperity of the community, alongside the famous Gwanno mask drama (관노가면극) — a silent masked play performed by figures in traditional costume — plus folk games, swings, ssireum, food stalls and a huge fairground atmosphere. UNESCO inscribed the Gangneung Danoje as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in recognition of how completely it has preserved these old traditions.
The Gangneung Danoje takes place in early summer, around the lunar Dano date — confirm the exact dates each year before planning. Gangneung is an easy KTX ride from Seoul, and there's plenty else to do there. See our Gangneung travel guide for beaches, the famous coffee street and how to get there.
Why Dano faded — and where it survives
So why don't most Koreans get a day off for Dano like they do for Chuseok? As Korea urbanised and farming stopped ruling the calendar, the agricultural festivals lost their everyday meaning, and Dano was dropped as a national public holiday. For most people it's now a date on the lunar calendar rather than a day of celebration.
But it hasn't vanished. The Gangneung Danoje draws huge crowds every year, smaller Dano events pop up around the country, and the imagery of Dano — the swing, the iris-washed hair, the green rice cakes — remains deeply woven into Korean art, literature and historical drama. It's less a holiday people keep now than one they remember.
In sageuk (historical dramas), look for early-summer scenes of women on tall swings, hair-washing by a stream, or village ssireum bouts — these are almost always Dano. It's a favourite setting for a romantic first meeting, since it was one of the few festivals where young men and women mingled freely outdoors.
How to experience Dano today
- Go to Gangneung during the Danoje for the full living festival — rituals, mask drama, swings and street food.
- Try the foods — look for surichwi-tteok and other seasonal rice cakes around the Dano date.
- Visit a folk village or palace — places like the Korean Folk Village often hold Dano events with swings, ssireum and hands-on traditions.
- Watch for it on screen — once you know the imagery, you'll start spotting Dano scenes in historical dramas everywhere.
Read about Korea's two biggest holidays in our Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) guide and Seollal (Korean New Year) guide.