PooMap — Find a Public Toilet in South Korea
A free, location-based app that puts every public toilet around you on a single map. Built for the moment when you need one and have no idea where to look.
What PooMap does
PooMap plots public toilet locations across South Korea on a map. Open the app and it centres on where you are, drops a pin on each nearby facility, and lists them in order of distance. Pick one and it hands off to your usual maps app for walking directions.
There is no account to create and no login screen. The app opens straight onto the map, which is the point — in the situation people actually use it, nobody wants to fill in a registration form. The core features are free.
Available on Google Play and the App Store. The app was previously published under the name PooPee and is now called PooMap.
Why visitors to Korea find it useful
South Korea has an unusually dense network of public toilets, and they are almost always free to use. Subway stations, parks, markets, riverside paths, highway rest areas and tourist sites nearly all have facilities maintained by the local district office.
The catch is that knowing they exist does not help you find one. Signage is often in Korean only, entrances can sit behind a building or down a flight of stairs, and generic map searches tend to surface businesses rather than public facilities. PooMap solves the narrow problem of turning "there is probably one nearby" into a pin and a walking route.
Main features
Map of toilets near you
Your GPS position anchors the map and every public toilet in range appears as a pin. Pan or zoom to scout a neighbourhood before you head there.
Sorted by distance
When there is no time to study a map, the list view puts the closest option at the top. One tap and you are done deciding.
Directions handoff
Choosing a destination opens route guidance in your maps app, so you can see how many minutes away it is on foot before setting off.
Facility details
Each entry shows the name, address and opening hours as published in the source data, which helps you judge whether it is likely to be open.
How to use it
- Install — download PooMap from Google Play or the App Store.
- Allow location access — the app needs your position to find what is nearby. Permission is used only while the app is open.
- Browse nearby toilets — tap a pin on the map, or choose from the distance-sorted list.
- Start directions — open the detail view and tap directions to route there in your maps app.
If you decline location permission, proximity search will not work. You can still drag the map to any area and browse the facilities there.
Practical notes on public toilets in Korea
A few things that regularly catch first-time visitors out. None of these are specific to the app, but they make the difference between finding a toilet and using one.
- They are free. Public facilities do not charge admission, and you will not need coins or a turnstile token.
- Subway stations are the reliable fallback. Almost every station has toilets. In some stations they sit outside the ticket gates, in others inside, so check the signage.
- Carry tissues. Most facilities are stocked, but not all of them reliably. A small pack of pocket tissues is cheap insurance and sold in every convenience store.
- Check the bin rules. Modern plumbing handles paper fine and bins are for waste, but a minority of older buildings still ask you to bin used paper. Signs above the cistern will tell you.
- Opening hours vary. Toilets inside a building, a park office or a market follow that venue's hours rather than being open around the clock.
Where the data comes from
Locations come from public toilet datasets published as open data by Korean local governments. The data is refreshed periodically, but it describes the official record rather than live conditions on the ground, so occasional mismatches are expected.
- A facility closed for renovation may still appear on the map.
- Opening hours can change with the season or the day of the week.
- Toilets inside a building are only accessible during that building's opening hours.
If you find an entry that does not match reality, let us know through the contact page and we will look into it.
Also on this site
Alongside the app we run a free calculator that works in any browser, with no installation required.