Inside the Won Factory: The Currency of King Sejong and the Hangul Alphabet (Full Process)

Step inside Korea's Money Factory and discover how one of East Asia's most culturally distinctive currencies is produced—the South Korean Won, the official money of a 52 million-person nation whose highest banknote honors King Sejong the Great, the 15th-century monarch universally credited with creating the Hangul alphabet, one of the most scientifically designed writing systems ever invented in human history. This full-process documentary reveals how Korea's currency combines six centuries of Joseon dynasty heritage, the legacy of one of Asia's greatest cultural achievements, high-security printing, and large-scale industrial precision to serve one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth. Issued under the authority of the Bank of Korea and produced by KOMSCO, the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation, Korean Won banknotes follow a tightly coordinated production workflow rooted in a remarkable monetary history—a modern currency introduced in 1962 to replace the Hwan, expanded through the celebrated 2006 and 2007 banknote redesigns, and crowned in 2009 with the introduction of the 50,000 won denomination, the highest-value note ever issued by the Republic of Korea. This cinematic walkthrough explores every major phase of the process, including specialized cotton-fiber paper manufacturing, watermark integration of historical figures, offset and intaglio printing, the elegant Hangul script that flows across every banknote, security threads, microtext, color-shifting inks, raised tactile features, serial numbering, and automated inspection systems. You'll see how the iconic imagery of Korea—the dignified portrait of King Sejong the Great on the 10,000 won note, the revered Confucian scholar Yi Hwang Toegye on the 1,000 won, the celebrated philosopher Yi I Yulgok on the 5,000 won, the legendary artist and poet Shin Saimdang on the 50,000 won as the first woman ever featured on a Korean banknote, alongside historic Joseon dynasty palaces, traditional astronomical instruments, and the iconic Mugunghwa national flowers—is precisely aligned during multi-layer printing. Blending industrial engineering, materials science, and the legacy of the Joseon dynasty which ruled the Korean peninsula from 1392 to 1897, this documentary explains how Korea manufactures trust across a nation defined by the Hangul alphabet officially proclaimed by King Sejong in 1446 and recognized by UNESCO as a Memory of the World, the centuries of Confucian scholarly tradition, the modern cultural movement known as the Hallyu wave that has spread Korean cinema and music across the entire planet, and one of the most innovative economies in modern Asia. From blank substrate to finished banknotes ready for distribution across Seoul, Busan, Incheon, and Daegu, the process reveals how a nation built around one of history's greatest cultural inventions became home to one of the most internationally respected currencies in all of East Asia. If you enjoy how money is made, high-security factories, large-scale manufacturing, or full-process industrial documentaries, this video offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the most historically remarkable currency systems on Earth—engineered to serve 52 million citizens in a nation whose 15th-century alphabet continues to shape modern global culture today. 🔔 Subscribe to explore more currency factories, guarded production facilities, and full-process engineering documentaries from around the world. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏭 ABOUT MINTEDFORGE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome to MintedForge — where raw nature meets modern industry. We go inside the world's most extraordinary factories and manufacturing processes to show you exactly how the things that run our world are made. New videos every day. Subscribe to never miss a process. 🔔 Hit the bell to get notified instantly. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 WATCH NEXT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Inside the SGD Factory: Why Singapore Stopped Printing the $10,000 Banknote ▶ Inside the Passport Factory: How the World's Most Powerful Passport Is Made ▶ Inside the Kip Factory: The Currency of the Ancient Land of a Million Elephants ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #SouthKoreanWon #KRW #KoreaMoney #InsideTheFactory #WonFactory #BankOfKorea #KingSejong #HangulAlphabet #JoseonDynasty #FullProcess #MintedForge #KoreanCurrency #ShinSaimdang #KoreanHeritage #KOMSCO #MoneyFactory