South Korea— Tattoo scenes & cities

In Korean, the traditional tattoo is called munshin, "characters engraved on the body". Under the Joseon dynasty it often served as a mark: aristocrats branded their slaves, and thieves received the character for "thief" on the wrist or forearm, later on the face, which was harder to hide. King Yeongjo abolished the punishment in 1740. The word long remained associated with gangsters.

In 1992 a Supreme Court ruling made tattooing a medical act, reserved for doctors; in 2022 the Constitutional Court rejected, by five votes to four, a complaint from a tattooists' union. In May 2026 the Supreme Court unanimously overturned that precedent. A law passed in September 2025 is to let non-doctors tattoo from October 2027.