North Korea’s Rural Development: The Project Hits Full Speed
As previously discussed, when Kim Jong Un launched the rural development initiative, it came with no numerical targets, making it unclear how extensive the campaign would be. However, the scale of the initiative became clearer, with new housing projects being opened at least weekly in the final two months of 2022.
In 2023, construction really ramped up. Throughout the year, new projects began weekly in counties across the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), and many were completed before the year ended. The redevelopment was largely focused on farms or rural villages and involved the demolition of whole neighborhoods of old, single-story homes, replaced with newer homes or low-rise apartment buildings.
There are too many projects to feature individually, but what follows highlights some that are mainly representative of the broader rural development initiative. They provide some insight into the changes taking place in rural North Korea and illustrate that while the project is generating new construction sites every week, each is being tailored to the local environment. That extends to the housing that, within and between projects, is not uniform. Numerous designs can be observed.
Ripsok-ri
Ripsok-ri in Mundok County, South Phyongan (Pyongan), provides a good example of the massive change that the rural development plan is having to countryside villages. Ripsok-ri is about 55 kilometers northwest of Pyongyang and is home to the DPRK-Iran Friendship Cooperative Farm.
In March 2022, demolition began of a neighborhood of about 20 low-rise apartment buildings close to the center of the village.
In their place, 32 new buildings were constructed and opened to residents in June 2023. State media reported the buildings had “peculiar features of socialism and regional character” but did not detail what they were.
The redevelopment resulted in the loss of some agricultural land at the center of the village, although, like in other developments, it did not touch the neighboring buildings associated with the ideological education of citizens.
But June 2023 wasn’t the end of the plan. As soon as the new apartments were open, work began on additional buildings in plots nearby and further agricultural land was sacrificed.
At two other plots on the western end of the village, work began on additional apartment buildings.
The Pidan Island Mystery
When new housing was opened on Pidan Island, about two kilometers from the Chinese border, state media made an intriguing reference to a calamity, but failed to elaborate further.
The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who regards the misfortune suffered by the people as the greatest pain and spares nothing to heal it, set it as the primary task to provide first of all dwelling houses for the inhabitants of the workers’ district in Pidan Island, Sindo County, who suffered unexpected disaster, and solved all problems arising in construction.
High-resolution commercial satellite imagery captured on April 8 shows no obvious signs of any natural disaster on the island, but sometime between April 19 and April 24, medium-resolution imagery shows 22 houses appear to have been demolished or destroyed.
Typically, in this rural development initiative, authorities remove a portion of a neighborhood and build new housing on that land. However, in the case of Pidan, additional homes are also missing on plots nearby.
Figure 5a. Imagery of housing development on Pidan Island observed on medium-resolution imagery from April 19, 2023. Image © 2024 Planet Labs, PBC cc-by-nc-sa 4.0. For media licensing options, please contact [email protected].; Figure 5b. Medium-resolution imagery from April 21, 2023 shows some demolished or destroyed houses. Image © 2024 Planet Labs, PBC cc-by-nc-sa 4.0. For media licensing options, please contact [email protected].
The imagery is not detailed enough to reveal what happened, but dark patches where the houses stood hint at a possible fire.
Whatever the disaster, new apartments were constructed within four months—a fast pace even for North Korean construction crews.
Korean Central Television imagery showed the new housing but did not include any aerial shots that might have shown the land where houses were removed.
Oryu Vegetable Farm
Not all projects progressed as fast as that on Pidan Island. At the Oryu Vegetable Farm near Pyongyang, a neighborhood of 36 houses and ancillary buildings was all but leveled in March 2022; construction of a new neighborhood began over the summer of the same year.
The first houses were ready for residents to move in by the end of the year, but work continued on additional apartment buildings, and a second move-in ceremony was held in May 2024.
Figure 9a. Leveled buildings at Oryu Vegetable Farm on imagery from June 3, 2022. Image: Google Earth, annotation by 38 North. For media licensing options, please contact [email protected].; New development at Oryu Vegetable Farm on imagery from March 16, 2024. Image: Google Earth, annotation by 38 North. For media licensing options, please contact [email protected].
Like work at many other farms, residents have been given two- or three-story homes. Some appear to have small areas for vegetable cultivation, but many do not, presumably because the farm can supply these to its workers.
Jangphyong-ri
Not all the projects across the country are large in scale. In Jangphyong-ri, a small village in Janggang County, Jagang (Chagang) Province, just north of Kanggye, new house construction began in 2022 in three small areas away from the center.
The redevelopment began with the demolition of about 90 homes. In their place, a series of low-rise apartments was built. The new buildings are spread over three areas at the foot of a hill, looking out over the village’s agricultural land.
Next Steps
The next installment of this series will look inside the new houses and apartments, what happens on move-in day and the current and future status of the project.