This was what blew me away while browsing Pyongyang on Google Maps. Huge roads, very fancy infrastructure that was barely being used. and in between them, shacks that seemed to not even have roads! Also many structures that must have been impressive at some point, but seemed like ruins now (notice the stadium in the post description has holes in its roof and basically seems unusable
That is Yanggakdo Stadium, apparently it has been closed for construction since 2017. I think most sports take place a bit further north in Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, it looks like it’s in better condition.
After the Korean war, the North was initially much better off, economically. They have most of the natural resources, iirc. Most of this stuff was probably built before the American sanctions regime eroded their economy.
This was what blew me away while browsing Pyongyang on Google Maps. Huge roads, very fancy infrastructure that was barely being used. and in between them, shacks that seemed to not even have roads! Also many structures that must have been impressive at some point, but seemed like ruins now (notice the stadium in the post description has holes in its roof and basically seems unusable
That is Yanggakdo Stadium, apparently it has been closed for construction since 2017. I think most sports take place a bit further north in Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, it looks like it’s in better condition.
I agree with you that there’s so few cars. Now I know the pictures here are quite low resolution but I can’t see that many people either.
I was also looking at Google maps and found this picture of the station with people visible. https://maps.app.goo.gl/hCfj3pNVKW6jkN7L9
Then, just for reference here is Hamburg central station with a similar population of ~2mil https://maps.app.goo.gl/JBDZDXArqzTM2cGaA
After the Korean war, the North was initially much better off, economically. They have most of the natural resources, iirc. Most of this stuff was probably built before the American sanctions regime eroded their economy.