Chuseok is the Korean harvest festival traditionally celebrated over three days around the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.
The festival is one of Korea’s major traditional holidays, alongside Seollal, the Lunar New Year. Families commonly travel to their ancestral hometowns, visit family graves, clean burial sites, and perform memorial rites called charye.
Food is central to Chuseok. Songpyeon, crescent-shaped rice cakes filled with ingredients such as sesame, beans, or chestnuts, is especially associated with the celebration. Families also prepare other seasonal dishes from the autumn harvest.
Chuseok is sometimes called Korean Thanksgiving in English because it combines family reunions, ancestor remembrance, and gratitude for the harvest. However, it is not simply a Korean version of the North American holiday: its rituals and lunar-calendar date come from Korean tradition.