Transport in North Korea
The standard route to and from North Korea is by plane or train through Beijing, People's Republic of China. Transport directly to and from South Korea has been possible on a limited scale from 2003 until 2008, when a road was opened (bus tours, no private cars). Freedom of movement in North Korea is limited;[1] citizens are not allowed to freely move around inside their country.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Roads
Fuel constraints and the near absence of private automobiles have relegated road transportation to a secondary role. The road network was estimated to be around 31,200 km in 1999 up from between 23,000 and 30,000 km in 1990, of which only 1,717 kilometers—7.5 percent—are paved; the rest are of dirt, crushed stone, or gravel, and are poorly maintained. There are three major multilane highways: a 200-kilometer expressway connecting P'yongyang and Wonsan on the east coast, a forty-three-kilometer expressway connecting P'yongyang and its port, Namp'o, and a four-lane 100- kilometer motorway linking P'yongyang and Kaesong. The overwhelming majority of the estimated 264,000 vehicles in use in 1990 were for the military. Rural bus service connects all villages, and cities have bus and tram services. Since 1945/1946, there is right-hand traffic on roads.
-
A highway outside of Pyongyang
-
Roadworks in North Korea. The blue truck in the foreground is a Chinese-made Dongfeng
-
A main road in Pyongyang
-
A side road in Kaesong
[edit] Public transport
There is a mix of locally built and imported trolleybuses and trams in the major urban centres of North Korea. Earlier fleets were obtained from Europe and China, but a trade embargo has forced North Korea to build their own vehicles.
-
Pyongyang tram in 2009
-
Trolleybus near Pyongyang Railway Station in 2007
-
Former Zurich type Be 4/4 tram on the Kumsusan Memorial Palace line
-
A Pyongyang Trolleybus Works Chongnyonjunwi
[edit] Railways
The Korean State Railway is the only rail operator in North Korea. It has a network of over 6000 km of standard gauge and 400 km of narrow gauge (762 mm) lines; as of 2007, over 5400 km of the standard gauge (well over 80%), along with 295.5 km of the narrow gauge lines are electrified.[3]
[edit] Water transport
Water transport on the major rivers and along the coasts plays growing role in freight and passenger traffic. Except for the Yalu and Taedong rivers, most of the inland waterways, totaling 2,250 kilometers, are navigable only by small boats. Coastal traffic is heaviest on the eastern seaboard, whose deeper waters can accommodate larger vessels. The major ports are Nampho on the west coast and Rajin, Chongjin, Wonsan, and Hamhung on the east coast. The country's harbor loading capacity in the 1990s was estimated at almost 35 million tons a year. There is a continuing investment in upgrading and expanding port facilities, developing transportation—particularly on the Taedong River—and increasing the share of international cargo by domestic vessels.
| Ports in North Korea |
|---|
| Chongjin, Haeju, Hamhung, Kimchaek, Kaesong, Rasŏn, Nampo, Sinuiju, Songnim, Sonbong (formerly Unggi), Ungsang, Wonsan |
[edit] Merchant marine
In the early 1990s, North Korea possessed an oceangoing merchant fleet, largely domestically produced, of sixty-eight ships (of at least 1,000 gross-registered tons), totalling 465,801 gross-registered tons (709,442 metric tons deadweight (DWT)), which included fifty-eight cargo ships and two tankers. As of 2008, this has increased to a total of 167 vessels consisting mainly of cargo and tanker ships.
| Fleet by type | |
|---|---|
| Total | 167 |
| Bulk carrier | 11 |
| Cargo | 121 |
| Carrier | 1 |
| Chemical tanker | 4 |
| Container | 3 |
| Cargo liner | 3 |
| Petroleum tanker | 19 |
| Reefer ship | 4 |
| Roll on/Roll off | 1 |
[edit] Air transport
North Korea's international air connections are limited in frequency and numbers. As of 2011, scheduled flights operate only from Pyongyang's Sunan International Airport to Beijing, Dalian, Shenyang, Shanghai, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Moscow, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and Kuwait International Airport. With charters to other destinations operated as per demand. Prior to 1995 many routes to Eastern Europe were operated including services to Sofia, Belgrade, Prague, Budapest along with others.
Air Koryo is the country's national airline. Air China also operates flights between Beijing and Pyongyang.
Internal flights are available between Pyongyang, Hamhung, Haeju(HAE), Hungnam(HGM), Kaesong (KSN), Kanggye, Kilju, Najin(NJN), Nampo(NAM), Sinuiju(SII), Samjiyon, Wonsan(WON), Songjin (SON) and Chongjin (CHO). All civil aircraft are operated by Air Koryo, which has a fleet of 56 passenger and cargo aircraft, all of which are Soviet models.
As of 2009, the CIA estimates that North Korea has 79 usable airports, 37 of which have permanent-surface runways.
| Airports - with paved runways | |
|---|---|
| Total | 37 |
| > 3,047 m | 2 |
| 2,438 to 3,047 m | 22 |
| 1,524 to 2,437 m | 8 |
| 914 to 1,523 m | 1 |
| < 914 m | 4 |
| Airports - with unpaved runways | |
|---|---|
| Total | 42 |
| 2,438 to 3,047 m | 3 |
| 1,524 to 2,437 m | 17 |
| 914 to 1,523 m | 14 |
| < 914 m | 8 |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies.
This article incorporates - ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (July 2, 2008). "UNHCR Freedom in the World 2008 - North Korea". Unhcr.org. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,,PRK,4562d8cf2,487ca236c0,0.html. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
- ^ North Korea: Freedom of movement, opinion and expression - Information sheet, Amnesty International, PDF, pulbished 2 August 2009, accessed 2011-04-08
- ^ Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō), ISBN 9784103037316
- Download a map of the entire North Korean Railway system to Google Earth here.
- Ducruet, Cesar et Jo, Jin-Cheol (2008) Coastal Cities, Port Activities and Logistic Constraints in a Socialist Developing Country: The Case of North Korea, Transport Reviews, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 1–25: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/462288788-26821155/content~content=a782923580~db=all~tab=content~order=page
- Jo, Jin-Cheol et Ducruet, Cesar (2007) Rajin-Seonbong, new gateway of Northeast Asia, Annals of Regional Science, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 927–950: http://www.springerlink.com/content/625g177v07722201
- Jo, Jin-Cheol et Ducruet, Cesar (2006) Maritime trade and port evolution in a socialist developing country : Nampo, gateway of North Korea, The Korea Spatial Planning Review, Vol. 51, pp. 3–24: http://library.krihs.re.kr/file/publication/att_file/publication2/PR51_01.pdf
- DUCRUET, Cesar, JO, Jin-Cheol, LEE, Sung-Woo, ROUSSIN, Stanislas, 2008, Geopolitics of shipping networks: the case of North Korea's maritime connections, Sustainability in International Shipping, Port and Logistics Industries and the China Factor, International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), Dalian, China, April 2–4.
- DUCRUET, Cesar, ROUSSIN, Stanislas, 2007, The changing relations between hinterland and foreland at North Korean ports (1985–2006), 6th Inha & Le Havre International Conference, Inha University, Incheon, Republic of Korea, October 10–11.
- DUCRUET, Cesar, ROUSSIN, Stanislas, 2007, Inter-Korean maritime linkages: economic integration vs. hub dependence, 15th European Conference on Theoretical and Quantitative Geography, Montreux, Switzerland, September 7–11, pp. 133–139 [ISBN 978-2-940368-05-1].
- ROUSSIN, Stanislas, DUCRUET, Cesar, 2007, The Nampo-Pyongyang corridor: a strategic area for European investment in DPRK, Recent Changes in North Korea and the Role of the European Union, Institute of Unification Studies & Hans Seidel Foundation, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, June 1.
- ROUSSIN, Stanislas, DUCRUET, Cesar, 2007, Doing business in DPRK for the European companies: the logistic issue, Seogang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, May 26.
- ROUSSIN, Stanislas, DUCRUET, Cesar, 2006, Logistic perspectives in DPRK, Annual Fall Meeting of the Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers, Seoul, Republic of Korea, September 15–16.
- Ducruet, Cesar et Roussin, Stanislas (2007) Coree du Nord : vers l'ouverture des ports maritimes, Journal de la Marine Marchande, No. 4566, Juin 22, pp. 6–9.
- Ducruet, Cesar et Roussin, Stanislas (2007) L'archipel nord-coreen : transition economique et blocages territoriaux, Mappemonde, Vol. 87, http://mappemonde.mgm.fr/num15/articles/art07302.html
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||
