Gold Price in South Korean Won

South Korea is one of the most technologically and culturally advanced countries in the world. In fact, its rise from an underdeveloped country in the wake of the Korean War to one of the most developed nations has been called the Miracle on the Han River. However, even with all of its innovation and advancement, South Koreans have to contend with the fact that gold is, by default, calculated in terms of US dollars, not South Korean won.

Now, many South Korean gold investors are probably more than capable of converting back and forth from won to dollars without too much difficulty. However, it’s still a hassle, even if it’s not much of one.

This page is here to remove that difficulty for anyone who routinely uses KRW, not USD. Our interactive chart below has every closing price for gold since January 1, 1995 – only expressed in terms of won, rather than dollars.

In addition to the multiple ways you can adjust the chart to your liking, you’ll also find information about the current day of trading. Along with the market price, we also have the bid, ask, high, and low prices in the upper left corner of the dashboard.

The market, bid, and ask are each updated in real time. The high and low are updated as the situation dictates, but always within seconds of a new mark’s appearance.

Hopefully, you can use the chart on this page to look for trends and indicators that can help you come to sharper investment decisions. So, let’s talk about everything you can use here.

Why Monitor Gold in South Korean Won?

We already touched on the first reason to monitor gold in KRW. It is much easier to consider the price shifts in gold if you can relate it readily to other products you buy. Since you likely use won on a daily basis, tracking gold in KRW is just easier.

However, because the value of the ₩ freely floats against the $, opportunities for investment can pop up for gold buying that have nothing to do with the underlying valuation of gold. Instead, discrepancies between the performances of gold in KRW and USD can indicate that shifts are taking place due to exchange rate fluctuations.

Here’s how that works:

A strengthening KRW against USD means that fewer won are required to buy the same amount of gold. So, South Korean demand goes up, and the price of gold goes with it.

Conversely, a weakening ₩ causes gold to become more expensive to South Korean investors. Demand then drops, and, assuming that the supply of gold stays the same, the price of gold declines.

Let’s be clear – we are not investment advisors or financial planners. So, don’t misconstrue the information above as definitive or investing advice. If anything, you shouldn’t make investment decisions based upon a single metric or measure.

How to Use the Gold Price Chart

When you first look at the gold price chart on this page, the first thing you’ll see is a graph of the current day of trading. You will also see the current price listed at the top left corner of the dashboard.

Directly underneath the current price, you’ll see the ask and bid prices for the present day. Both of these prices and the market price are updated in real time.

Finally, you’ll see the high and low prices for the day. These prices aren’t updated in real time, of course, but we change them any time new high or low marks are achieved.

Beneath all the current information, you’ll see two columns of buttons. The first group to notice is the column with orange buttons on the right. You can use these buttons to adjust the date range for the chart to several preset time periods – all the way up to a year.

If you want to look farther back in history, however, you’ll need to select the All button at the bottom. From there, you can adjust the chart in one of two ways.

The first thing to do is to enter start and end dates in the blanks that appear beneath the All button when you press it. Submit the dates you want, and the chart will shift to the designated range.

Alternatively, you can move the sliders that appear underneath the chart itself to the dates that you want. This method is especially good to use if you want to compare different time periods of the same length, as you can slide the window back and forth horizontally.

Every point on the chart that you see can be examined further. All you need to do is hover your finger or cursor over a point, and more information will appear in a pop-up window.

The only catch is that longer time frames cause the chart to present averages for periods of days, such as weeks or months, rather than individual days of business. In order to see the details on a single day, you’ll need to shrink the date range down to 1 – 3 years.

Finally, you can also compare the performance of gold in KRW against the performances of various indicators and measures. Push one of the radio buttons, and you can see how gold’s price correlates to indicators like the FTSE 100 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Gold Price in KRW vs. USD

One important element to consider is the fact that both the price of gold and the exchange rate between South Korean won and American dollars are both quite subjective. Even though there are plenty of hard numbers and data that can influence these two measures, they are – like all prices – ultimately a matter of opinion between buyers and sellers.

So, the public’s perception of the South Korean and/or the US economy can play a major role in both investor interest in gold and the strength of the two countries’ currencies. Even if the perception is incorrect, you may see a noticeable shift in the exchange rate and, by extension, the price of gold in KRW versus the price of gold in USD.

Notable Events that Caused the Price to Shift

Date Closing Price (KRW) Notes
December 23, 1997 ₩573,703.26 The first significant spike in gold’s price in terms of South Korean won happened for reasons quite specific to South Korea itself. Several South Korean business conglomerates (chaebols) filed for bankruptcy, which terrified investors worldwide and caused them to flee KRW for greener pastures.
September 22, 2011 ₩2,071,342.72 The record set in 1997 would hold for nearly ten years, when growing concerns about the early stages of the Eurozone Crisis pushed gold’s price up to ₩673,000 in May 2006. However, the crisis and the concurrent Great Recession in the US would paralyze most of the world’s largest economies. As a result, gold’s price increased by more than three times in just over 5 years, from May 2006 to this date in September 2011.
August 6, 2020 ₩2,450,399.99 After the economic crisis finally ended, consumer confidence slowly returned, and the price of gold dropped. At one point in 2015, it had settled around ₩1.2 million. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic instilled fear in almost every human on the planet, including investors. With the economic shutdowns and slowdowns that the pandemic precipitated, investors flocked back to gold to protect their net worths as best they could. As a result, the price of gold blew past 2 million won for the second time, and nearly achieved a price of ₩2.5 million.
March 8, 2022 ₩2,522,323.38 Only two years later, that ₩2.5 million mark became a reality. The event behind the rise in price was Russia’s unsettling invasion of Ukraine two weeks prior to the record. In what would become a recurring theme in the 2020s, geopolitical conflicts scared investors in most of the world’s top countries – especially in Europe, where the conflict was underway. The collateral effects of the new war reverberated through most of the world economies, and produced this new highest gold price in KRW.
January 28, 2026 ₩7,744,716.91 As it turned out, the next four years would create a new paradigm for the price of gold. The Ukraine War was joined by the Israel-Hamas War in October 2023, and the increasing polarization in many first-world countries yielded an overall sense of instability. To this, the conflict and the new aggressive tariff policy initiated by the Trump administration only pushed more people toward the safe haven of gold. In addition, the Bank of Korea (along with other central banks) began massive purchasing of gold themselves. This spike happened extremely quickly – as recently as April 2024, an ounce of gold had only increased 500,000 won beyond the 2022 record. So, in only 22 months, the same ounce of gold cost almost more than two-and-a-half times more.

What Influences the Price of Gold?

The price of gold is a function of its supply and demand on the open market. In fact, the published price of gold you see at the top of this page (or elsewhere) is actually the price that commodity traders are paying for currently-expiring or near-expiring gold futures contracts.

The question, then, is what factors influence either the supply or the demand for gold. Here are some of the bigger ones that may push the price of gold one way or the other.

Geopolitical conditions – The most impactful factor that influences gold’s price, especially in recent times, is the geopolitical status of the world. The amount of the unrest is in direct correlation to the price of gold. In other words, wars, trade disputes, increased tariffs, and regime change make investors quite nervous about both individual and global economies. Since fiat currencies are the tool of those economies, people seek the safe haven of gold to weather the unrest as best they can. In the end, gold’s tangibility and intrinsic value guarantees that frightened individuals can preserve their wealth effectively.

Industrial demand – Although gold is not required by various industries to the same degree as silver, it is nonetheless a vital component for many devices. Gold’s conductivity and – crucially, different from silver – lack of corrosion makes it ideal for electrical components that must function in adverse conditions, such as those in medical and aerospace applications. Were any gold-using industries to change their need for gold, either upwards or downwards, the price of gold would be sure to follow.

Inflation – Inflation can, quite literally, cause the price for an ounce of gold to escalate. When the currency is becoming diluted and less valuable, it necessarily takes more of it to purchase the same amount of gold as before. Furthermore, the presence of high or increasing inflation can have an accelerated effect on the price because investor demand goes up. Investors don’t like seeing their wealth devalued for any reason, and gold provides a safety net to ride out the dilution of their chosen currencies.

Interest rates – The interest rate is the amount of compensation that lenders charge for the use of their funds. However, interest rates can affect the demand for gold because many investors use the interest rate as a gauge of the risk vs. return proposition for putting their money in the market. If the interest rate is high, then they are more likely to stick with fiat currency to realize the higher yields. If the interest rate drops, they are less favorably compensated for the risk, and they may look to counterbalance the risk with more investing in gold.

Central bank actions – Even though central banks directly set many of the drivers of their respective nations’ economies, they also do their own investing in order to manage their countries’ risk profiles. Furthermore, a central bank’s ownership of gold can bolster their resident economies’ credibility as a solvent entity. Conversely, the sale of gold can also pay the bills without a concurrent increase in taxes, especially when gold itself is increasing in value for other reasons. So, watch for massive amounts of central bank purchasing or divesting of gold – many investors do, and can amplify whichever direction the price of gold moves in response.

The Economy of South Korea

South Korea’s economy is incredibly well-developed and advanced. It is the 14th-largest in the world, and is one of 21 countries with annual gross domestic products in excess of 1 trillion US dollars.

As mentioned, South Korea’s rise to prominence happened quite quickly, with its modernization and industrialization occurring only after the Korean War in the 1950s. A massive government investment in education and motivation led to a cultural shift toward capitalism and free markets.

As a result, South Korea is one of the world’s top producers of electronics, telecommunications devices, and automobiles. These industries often use gold in their devices, and increases or decreases in the demand from these sectors may cause the need for gold to change in the future.

World Gold Prices