Pyongyang
The name Pyongyang means "flat land" or "cozy place". The city has about 2 million inhabitants. Pyongyang is situated at the Taedong River. Northwest of the city are hills.
The high-rise suburbs are connected to the city center by huge thoroughfares - one even being 13 lanes wide. The Pyongyang metro is an easy way of transportation within the city. Pyongyang's subway consists of a north-south route (14 km) and east-west route (20 km), crossing each other. The two routes combined extend for 34 km. 8 stations are set up along the north-south route and 9 stations on the east-west route. The stations have been, like the Moscow example, decorated with reliefs and revolutionary paintings. Stations are named after propaganda terms, like Comrade, Victory, and Construction, instead of regional names. Comrade station (north-south route) and Victory station (east-west route) are transfer stations on the Pyongyang subway. Construction work on the north-south route and east-west route began simultaneously in 1968, but the construction of the north-south route was completed in September 1973, and the construction of the east-west route in September 1978. The Mankyungdae route (about 10 km) linking Kwangbok station to the Mankyungdae district, where Kim Il-sung's birthplace is located, was planned for completion by October 2000.
The Pyongyang subway is renowned for its depth. The Puhung (Reconstruction) station is dug 100 meters under Pyongyang. Because it was dug 150-meters underground (versus 10-30 meters in Seoul), escalators must be used for going up and down inside the subway. The subway was constructed at such a depth underground to cope with times of emergency like war, but has a tendency to consume too much electricity for its operations.
