Seoul Essentials

HTTP

Summary

Pulls live data from Seoul Open Data Plaza covering 30,000+ public facilities across 17 categories, from pharmacies with foreign language support to AED locations, WiFi hotspots, and traditional markets. Exposes four tools: find_places for filtered searches by type and district, find_nearby for GPS-based proximity queries, get_place_detail for full records, and get_subway_timetable for transit schedules at major stations. Useful when building tourist assistance agents or location-aware Seoul travel apps. Note that some datasets like pharmacies and post offices fall back to district centroids rather than precise coordinates due to upstream source limitations, so proximity ranking works at district grain for those types.

CodeRabbit

AI writes the code. CodeRabbit catches the slop.

Try For Free →

Make your agent a DeFi expert

Agent, run crypto. Access onchain data & trade routes via 1inch.

Install now →

AppSignal

Monitor with ease. Code with confidence.

Start Free Trial →

Make money from your Skills

On Capafy, your Skill runs online 24/7 as an agent product, and you get paid every time someone uses it.

Start earning →

Put your SEO on autopilot

An agent that runs the SEO playbooks that move rankings and ships PRs you control.

Get founding access →

Vibe Prospecting MCP

Connect Claude to +800M contacts, +150M companies. Find & Enrich leads in chat.

Try For Free →

CodeRabbit

AI writes the code. CodeRabbit catches the slop.

Try For Free →

Make your agent a DeFi expert

Agent, run crypto. Access onchain data & trade routes via 1inch.

Install now →

AppSignal

Monitor with ease. Code with confidence.

Start Free Trial →

Make money from your Skills

On Capafy, your Skill runs online 24/7 as an agent product, and you get paid every time someone uses it.

Start earning →

Put your SEO on autopilot

An agent that runs the SEO playbooks that move rankings and ships PRs you control.

Get founding access →

Vibe Prospecting MCP

Connect Claude to +800M contacts, +150M companies. Find & Enrich leads in chat.

Try For Free →

Featured

CodeRabbit

AI writes the code. CodeRabbit catches the slop.

Try For Free →

Make your agent a DeFi expert

Agent, run crypto. Access onchain data & trade routes via 1inch.

Install now →

AppSignal

Monitor with ease. Code with confidence.

Start Free Trial →

Make money from your Skills

On Capafy, your Skill runs online 24/7 as an agent product, and you get paid every time someone uses it.

Start earning →

Put your SEO on autopilot

An agent that runs the SEO playbooks that move rankings and ships PRs you control.

Get founding access →

Vibe Prospecting MCP

Connect Claude to +800M contacts, +150M companies. Find & Enrich leads in chat.

Try For Free →

TransportHTTP

UpdatedFeb 28, 2026

View on GitHub

Seoul Essentials — MCP Server

Essential public facility data for AI agents helping foreign tourists in Seoul, South Korea.

What is this?

Seoul Essentials is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides structured data about essential public facilities in Seoul. Designed for AI agents that assist foreign tourists with real-time queries about nearby services.

Available Data (30,000+ places, 17 types)

Type	Description	Count
`toilet`	Public restrooms across all 25 districts	4,452
`pharmacy`	Pharmacies with foreign language support (English/Chinese/Japanese)	417
`wifi`	Free public WiFi hotspots (Seoul WiFi)	7,251
`aed`	AED (defibrillator) locations	10,000
`tourist_info`	Tourist information centers	16
`baeknyeon`	Century-old designated shops & restaurants	168
`bike`	따릉이 (Seoul Bike) sharing stations	~2,700
`future_heritage`	Seoul Future Heritage sites	~470
`heritage`	Designated cultural properties	~600
`museum`	Museums & galleries	~210
`park`	Major parks	~130
`taxi_stand`	Taxi stands	~370
`metro_facility`	Subway lockers & facilities	~290
`tourist_zone`	Tourist special zones	8
`post_office`	Post offices (EMS / international mail)	227
`traditional_market`	Korean traditional markets (Gwangjang, Namdaemun, ...)	433
`ev_charger`	EV charging stations	187
`subway`	Subway timetables for major stations	10 stations

MCP Tools

`find_places`

Search for public facilities by type and conditions.

Parameters:

type (required): one of the 17 types listed above (e.g., "toilet", "pharmacy", "post_office", "traditional_market", "ev_charger")
district (optional): Seoul district name in English or Korean (e.g., "gangnam", "강남구")
filters (optional): Service-specific filters (e.g., {"english": true}, {"is_24h": true}, {"indoor": true})
limit (optional): Max results, 1-50 (default: 10)

`get_place_detail`

Get full details of a specific place by its ID.

Parameters:

id (required): Place ID (e.g., "toilet_00001", "pharmacy_001", "aed_00001")

`find_nearby`

Find public facilities near GPS coordinates, sorted by distance.

Parameters:

lat (required): Latitude (Seoul range: ~37.4 to ~37.7)
lng (required): Longitude (Seoul range: ~126.7 to ~127.2)
radius_m (optional): Search radius in meters, 100-5000 (default: 500)
type (optional): Filter by facility type
limit (optional): Max results, 1-20 (default: 5)

`get_subway_timetable`

Get subway timetable for a specific station.

Parameters:

station (required): Station name in Korean or English (e.g., "강남" or "Gangnam")
line (optional): Line number (e.g., "2")
day_type (optional): "weekday" | "saturday" | "holiday" (default: "weekday")
direction (optional): "up" | "down"

Quick Start

Option A: Smithery (Recommended)

Visit Seoul Essentials on Smithery and follow the setup instructions for your MCP client.

Option B: Direct Connection

Add to your MCP client config (e.g., Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seoul-essentials": {
      "url": "https://seoul-essentials-mcp-230987091625.asia-northeast3.run.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Option C: Run Locally

git clone https://github.com/do-droid/seoul-essentials.git
cd seoul-essentials
API_BASE_URL="https://asia-northeast3-seoul-essentials.cloudfunctions.net/api" \
uv run python -m src.server

Example Queries

An AI agent can use these tools to answer questions like:

English

"Find an English-speaking pharmacy near Gangnam Station"
"Where is the nearest public restroom to my location?"
"What's the subway schedule at Myeongdong Station?"
"Find free WiFi hotspots in Hongdae area"
"Where is the closest AED to Itaewon?"

日本語

「明洞で日本語が通じる薬局を探して」
「弘大の近くで無料Wi-Fiが使える場所は？」
「江南駅周辺のEV充電スポットを教えて」

中文

"在明洞附近找会说中文的药店"
"弘大附近哪里有24小时便利的公共厕所？"
"梨泰院附近的清真餐厅在哪里？"

Feedback

We actively review and incorporate feedback to improve data quality and coverage.

For AI agents: Use the submit_feedback tool during a conversation to report issues or suggest improvements.

For developers: Open a feedback issue on GitHub.

Known Data Limitations

pharmacy: Sourced from Seoul Open Data Plaza's "Foreign-language Capable Pharmacy Status" dataset, which lists only pharmacies that confirmed English/Chinese/Japanese service. Gangnam-gu is not represented in the upstream dataset (origin gap, not a parser bug). Coordinates fall back to the district centroid because the upstream rows do not carry lat/lng. We have requested expanded coverage from Seoul Open Data Plaza for the next refresh.
post_office / traditional_market / ev_charger: Upstream datasets do not include lat/lng. Coordinates fall back to the centroid of each Seoul district (coordinates_approximate: true). District-level filters (?district=mapo) are exact; find_nearby ranking against these types is district-grained rather than building-grained.
Roadmap (next round): halal_friendly (data.go.kr 15111159 was withdrawn — searching alternative sources) and emergency_room (data.go.kr 3043449 not findable — switching to e-gen.or.kr OpenAPI) are planned for the following refresh.

Data Sources

All data sourced from official Seoul government open data:

License

MIT