Transport in North Korea

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The standard route to and from North Korea is by plane 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).

[edit] Roads

Main roads of North Korea

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.

[edit] Public transport

There is a mix of local built and imported trolleybuses and trams in urban centres in North Korea. Earlier fleets were obtained in Europe and China, but a trade embargo has forced North Korea to build their own vehicles. For more see Trams and Trolleybuses in North Korea

[edit] Railways

Railways of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Choson Cul Minzuzui Inmingonghoagug is the only rail operator in North Korea. It has a network of 5,200 km or track with 4,500 km in Standard gauge^[1]. There is a small narrow gauge railway in operation in Haeju peninsula.^[1].

The railway fleet consists of a mix of electric and steam locomotives. Cars are mostly made in North Korea using Soviet designs. There are some locomotives from Imperial Japan, the United States and Europe remaining in use. Particularly in recent years, a growing number of second-hand China National Railways locomotives have been spotted in active service on North Korean trackage, in particular Beijing BJ hydraulic units and early build Chinese DF4 units decommissioned from use on the CNR.

The Pyongyang Metro operates the only known underground mass transit in North Korea, offering a supposedly extensive network of underground services within Pyongyang. Metro services are also supplemented with above-ground tram services in both Pyongyang and a number of secondary North Korean cities.

The nation's current leader Kim Jong Il is known to use the country's railway network extensively, travelling to his palaces and for out-of-town appointments in one of his presidential trains, as did his father Kim Il Sung. Both Kims took their trains to foreign trips as well.^[2][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 2,253 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. 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), totaling 465,801 gross-registered tons (709,442 metric tons deadweight (DWT)), which includes fifty-eight cargo ships and two tankers. 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.

[edit] Merchant marine

203 ships (1,000 gross register tons (GRT) or over) totaling 921,557 GRT/1,339,929 DWT
ships by type: bulk carrier 6, cargo ship 166, combination bulk carrier 2, container ship 3, liquefied gas 1, livestock carrier 3, multi-functional large load carrier 1, passenger/cargo ship 1, petroleum tanker 11, refrigerated cargo ship 6, roll-on/roll-off 2, short-sea/passenger 1

[edit] Air transport

Sunan International Airport

North Korea's international air connections are extremely limited. As of 2009, scheduled flights operate only from Pyongyang's Sunan International Airport to Beijing, Shenzhen, Bangkok, Singapore and Vladivostok among others, with occasional charters to other destinations. Scheduled services to Moscow, Khabarovsk, Macau, Shenyang etc have been terminated. Air Koryo offers no service to the European Union and is banned from operating there.

Air Koryo is the country's national airline. Air China also operates flights between Beijing and Pyongyang.

Internal flights operate irregularly between Pyongyang, Hamhung, Wonsan, and Chongjin. All civil aircraft are operated by Air Koryo, which has a fleet of 34 aircraft which are all Soviet or Russian models.

In 2003, the CIA estimated that North Korea has 78 usable airports, 35 of which had permanent-surface runways.

[edit] Airports - with paved runways

total: 35
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 23
1,524 to 2,437 m: 5
914 to 1,523 m: 1
under 914 m: 3 (2003 est.)

[edit] Airports - with unpaved runways

total: 43
2,438 to 3,047 m: 1
1,524 to 2,437 m: 20
914 to 1,523 m: 14
under 914 m: 8 (2003 est.)

[edit] Pipelines

There were 154 kilometers of oil pipelines in North Korea in 2006

[edit] See also

• North Korea
• List of Korea-related topics

[edit] References

•  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies.

• 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

• Air Koryo Korean Airways(JS) Official Web Site
• Pyongyang Metro System Unofficial Web Site