[3] Employment is provided through tourism, fishing, and the thermoelectric power station, largely built on reclaimed land on the south-west coast of the island.

The island, along with neighbouring Seonjae-do, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because its intertidal mudflats support a significant population of breeding Chinese egrets.

Yeongheungdo is featured strongly in the first-hand account The Secrets of Inchon: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Covert Mission of the Korean War.

According to The Secrets of Inchon, Yeongheungdo was used for a reconnaissance/commando mission led by Commander Eugene F. Clark to surveil the regions along the Flying Fish Channel, including Wolmido, Daebudo and Muuido, among others.

[5] Yeongheungdo has several sandy beaches, most notably Nae-ri (내리) on the east coast, Simripo (십리포) in the north-east, along the edge of which lies a grove of Carpinus coreana, and Janggyeong-ri (장경리) in the north-west.