The Ministry of National Defense, which oversees a 500,000-strong military, traces its origins to Nov. 13, 1945, when it was launched as the National Defense Command to handle military administration, military command and military affairs. In March 1946, it was renamed the Ministry of National Defense under Military Government Ordinance No. 64. With the founding of the Republic of Korea government on Aug. 15, 1948, the ministry was established under the Government Organization Act and has remained in place ever since.
Along with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of National Defense is the only ministry created at the founding of the Republic of Korea government that has never changed its name. The buildings it has occupied — and in particular its seventh relocation, completed only recently — carry weight because they track the major turns of South Korea's modern history. Through the country's rapid development, the ministry served as a firm cornerstone of national security.
The ministry completed its move on Aug. 14, when the minister's office was the last to relocate. It has returned to the building it had used since 2003, which it handed over to the Presidential Office in May 2022 under the Yoon Suk-yeol government's plan to move the presidential office to Yongsan. The ministry had spent four years doubling up in the Joint Chiefs of Staff building across the road.
It is the seventh time the ministry has moved since it was created in August 1948. From the U.S. military government period after liberation, the National Defense Command and the Department of Internal Security — both predecessors of the ministry — laid the groundwork for the armed forces while shuttling between an annex of the old Central Government Building and Namsan-dong 2-ga in Seoul's Jung District, now the site of the Pacific Hotel. When the government was founded on Aug. 15, 1948, the ministry settled into the New Korea Company building, now the site of Hana Financial Group's Myeong-dong headquarters.
The New Korea Company was established in 1946 to manage property that had belonged to the Oriental Development Company and to Japanese nationals during the colonial period. Its building stood on the former site of the Oriental Development Company in Euljiro 1-ga. The Defense Ministry used the west wing and Army Headquarters the east wing. On June 30 of the following year, the ministry moved again, this time to the former garrison of the Capital Brigade behind what is now the Yongsan Post Office.
The Capital Brigade, the predecessor of the 7th Brigade created on Jan. 7, 1949, was soon upgraded to a division and moved out, leaving the site to the Defense Ministry and Army Headquarters. The location had housed the Japanese army's Korea Army Command during the colonial period. After the Korean War broke out and the government moved its temporary capital to Busan, the ministry set up new quarters on Aug. 18, 1950, at Sujeong Elementary School in the city.
On July 30, 1953, three days after the armistice was signed, the government returned to Seoul and the ministry moved to Huam-dong in Yongsan District, now the site of the Brownstone Namsan complex. Construction of a new ministry building began in 1966, and on Sept. 1, 1970, the ministry moved into the new headquarters, now the ministry annex. Built over roughly four years, it had one basement level and 10 floors above ground.
Erected under the military government of President Park Chung-hee, the current annex — the ministry's fifth headquarters — was a large and ornate building that still commands attention today. That made it one of the targets seized by rebel forces during the Dec. 12, 1979, military mutiny. Troops from the ministry headquarters fired M61 Vulcan cannons from the roof in resistance, but the building fell to an incursion by the Army Special Warfare Command.
The annex, state-of-the-art at the time, grew outdated over the years, and the ministry's expanding organization and the need to share the building with the Joint Chiefs of Staff left it short of space, prompting calls for a new headquarters. A new building was erected on the site of the current ministry headquarters and put into use on Oct. 13, 2003. Unlike the annex, which faces north, the new building faces south and has a parade ground in front.
Designed and built to be split evenly between the ministry and the Joint Chiefs, the first through fourth floors went to the ministry and the fifth through ninth to the Joint Chiefs. Even so, space was tight enough that only half the ministry's organization, including the minister's office, moved in, with the rest remaining in the annex. In August 2012, the Joint Chiefs built its own separate headquarters next door and moved out, leaving the building to the ministry alone.
The new Joint Chiefs building was originally to be shared with the Combined Forces Command, but became the Joint Chiefs' own after the command relocated to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Then, with the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol government in 2022, a plan to move the Presidential Office into the Defense Ministry building in Yongsan was confirmed, and on May 10 that year the ministry's core organization moved once again into the Joint Chiefs building.
That left the Presidential Office and the Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs buildings adjacent to each other, separated by a single road. The plan had been for the Joint Chiefs to build a new headquarters by December 2029 at Namtaeryeong, where the Capital Defense Command and the Strategic Command are based, and move there, leaving the Joint Chiefs building to the ministry alone. But the plan collapsed after funding for the Namtaeryeong move failed to make it into the budget year after year.
In the end, the Lee Jae-myung government, which took office in June 2025, decided to move the presidential office back to Cheong Wa Dae, returning the building to the ministry that had owned it in the first place. Funding for the move back was included in the 2026 budget, and after interior renovations, the relocation that began on July 27 was completed with the minister's office moving in on Aug. 14.
The return comes four years after the ministry's units were scattered across the Joint Chiefs building and elsewhere, and 23 years after the current headquarters was built. Arriving for a first day of work at the new headquarters, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said mixed emotions came with the moment. "After going round and round, separated by just one road, we have come back to this building after four years, and mixed emotions run through me," the minister said. "In this new headquarters, our 550,000 defense family members will unite as one and press ahead even harder with defense reform."
