100 Won

South Korea adopted this denomination as part of a currency redenomination in 1962, replacing the hwan at a rate of 10 hwan to 1 won — a response to chronic postwar inflation and the monetary instability that had plagued the peninsula through the 1950s. The series has run continuously through military governments, democratization, and the 1997–98 IMF financial crisis, during which the won lost nearly half its value against the dollar almost overnight.

Composition has remained unchanged across four decades of production despite several reformulations considered during the 1998 austerity period.