A Sea in A Heavy GaleThat's how early European visitors described the Korean peninsula (at the time North and South Korea didn't exist). Almost 80% of the North Korean landscape is made of mountains and hills with elevations reaching over 2000 metres above sea level. There are large mountainscapes that span across the entire country leaving little room for flat land for architecture, farmland, and other infrastructural necessities for the North Korean people.
This means that people live in close proximity of one another and the residential areas are more like slums as the government built them to be small and compact so they could fit their people into homes rather than living on the streets. Residential areas are rarely in the city or near government buildings because the space around those places are used to show off North Korean architecture and advertise North Korean propaganda. leaving no room for people to live. Often times residential buildings are built as state of the art buildings but never occupied by citizens because they are built to boost morale and encourage visitors to believe that North Korea is a flourishing nation. |
A Rock and A Hard Place
The people of North Korea have been living, quite literally, in between a rock and a hard place; the topography around them is almost hostile towards farming and necessary shelter due to its mountainous characteristics and the natural draining features of hills that make farming there very difficult.
Setting up a rice or potato farm takes a lot of work as the land needs to be flattened out before plantation occurs otherwise as the crops are being watered, the water will run through the soil and end up at the bottom of the hill. Along with problems when farming, residential areas must be built in a place that can be kept safe and relatively dry throughout the seasons and since there is a low number of flat, open areas in North Korea, residential areas are often tightly packed poorly maintained. The largest natural plateaus are occupied by cities that contain residential buildings for military workers and political representatives as well as massive monuments and completely empty buildings that the Korean Government builds as a demonstration to its residents that their country is thriving, even if that is less than true. The expansive mountain ranges are North Korea's main touristic attractions and because they are so beautiful and present in everyday life, mountains have become a large part of North Korean culture. For example, mountains have found themselves in almost every North Korean painting as they are easily accessible and pleasing to look at. To the people of North Korea, mountains symbolize power and divine beauty as its current leader, Kim Jon-Un, was allegedly born at the summit of the largest mountain in North Korea, and most paintings of their previous leaders are made with them standing atop a mountain overlooking the sunset or the magnificent country they have formed. Mountains hold a sacred place in the heart of North Koreans, even those that don't live on or near mountains. Mountains are extremely important in North Korean culture. |