🇰🇵 North Korea
Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) — one of the most closed and controlled states in the world, with an estimated population of 3 million in a city that has been entirely rebuilt since the Korean War (1950-1953) when US bombing destroyed 75% of all structures and killed an estimated 12-15% of the North Korean population. The city that exists today is a deliberate monumental statement of the Juche ideology (the Korean concept of national self-reliance developed by Kim Il-sung) — wide Stalinist boulevards, towering bronze statues of the Kim family (Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il) that must be bowed to upon approach, the Ryugyong Hotel (105 floors, 330 m, started in 1987, still unfinished in 2026, the largest unfinished building in the world), the 170 m Juche Tower (a granite obelisk topped with a red torch reflecting the ideology), the Arch of Triumph (a 60 m replica of the Arc de Triomphe that is larger than the Paris original), and the Mass Games (Arirang Games, when performed — the world's largest choreographed performance with up to 100,000 participants in the May Day Stadium, the world's largest stadium at 114,000 capacity). Foreign tourists (approximately 5,000 Western tourists per year, primarily through Beijing-based tour operators under strict minder supervision) see a curated version of Pyongyang — the showpiece metro system (the deepest in the world at 110 m, with chandeliers and murals), the model cooperative farm, the dolphinarium, the bowling alley and the carefully managed interactions with citizens who have been selected and briefed for foreign contact.