Gwanghwamun Station: the admiral, the king and the square above Line 5

Gwanghwamun Station is on Line 5, station 533, and it opened on December 30, 1996. It is not the closest station to the palace gate it is named after, which the Gyeongbokgung Station guide covers, but it is the one that opens onto Sejong-daero, the wide boulevard that runs through the middle of old Seoul. Exit 9 leads into Haechi Madang, an underground walkway to Gwanghwamun Square, so the first part of the walk to the statues is underground.

The square itself is young. It opened on August 1, 2009 after a 15-month renovation, and its two best-known residents arrived at very different times.

Admiral Yi Sun-sin, standing

The standing statue is Admiral Yi Sun-sin, erected on April 27, 1968. It is 17 metres tall including the pedestal: the bronze figure is 6.5 metres and it stands on a 10.5 metre pillar. The sculptor was Kim Se-jung, an art professor at Seoul National University, who worked with historians. The admiral wears armor and holds a sword in his right hand.

Yi Sun-sin lived from 1545 to 1598 and was a naval commander of the Joseon dynasty. In the Imjin War, the Japanese invasion of 1592 to 1598, he is generally accepted to have fought at least 23 naval battles and won all of them. He is credited with designing the turtle ship, an armored warship with an iron-spiked deck and a dragon figurehead. At the Battle of Myeongnyang in 1597 he led 13 warships against a Japanese fleet of at least 133. He died at the Battle of Noryang in 1598, hit by a stray bullet while chasing retreating ships, and Chungmugong, the title by which he is often called, was given to him after his death.

The statue has had a quiet life for a famous one. A plan to move it was considered in 2005 and cancelled after public debate. In November 2010 it was lifted away for about 40 days of restoration, its first move in 42 years, and put back on December 23.

The fountain beside it carries his story too. The 12.23 Fountain is named for the 23 battles Yi fought with 12 warships. Its main jets rise 18 metres and 300 smaller jets surround them, and a 365-metre water channel along the east side of the square is lined with 617 stones recording events from 1392 to 2008. A small exhibition hall and museum near the statues memorializes both the admiral and the king.

King Sejong, sitting

The seated statue is King Sejong the Great, unveiled on October 9, 2009 in a ceremony attended by President Lee Myung-bak, two months after the square opened. The date is deliberate: October 9 is Hangul Day, and in 2009 it marked the 563rd anniversary of the Korean alphabet, which puts the alphabet's announcement in 1446.

The sculptor was Kim Yeong-won, a professor at Hongik University, whose design won a competition among shortlisted artists. The statue is 6.2 metres high, 4.3 metres wide and weighs 20 tons. Sejong sits with one hand raised and the other holding a book. Hangul characters are shown on the sides of the statue, and small models of a celestial globe, a rain gauge and a sundial stand in front of it.

Sejong was the fourth king of Joseon and reigned from September 18, 1418 to April 8, 1450. He is credited with creating Hangul. He also re-established the Hall of Worthies in 1420, a research institution that historians compare to a think tank, and he commissioned scientific instruments: a rain gauge, the chugugi, was invented around 1441 and distributed in 1442, and a water clock was designed in 1434. The rain gauge and sundial at his feet are models of instruments from his reign.

It is a good pairing for a subway game. One of the two men won wars with a few ships, the other gave Korea the alphabet you type with. Our guide to typing Korean station names is the second man's gift in practice, and the Line 5 guide lists the stations on either side of Gwanghwamun. In Hangul the station is 광화문, 10 keystrokes.