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.

Categories: new_data | data_quality | coverage | format | frequency | other

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:

• Seoul Open Data Plaza (data.seoul.go.kr)
• Korea Open Data Portal (data.go.kr)

License

MIT