Ryugyong Hotel

The Ryugyong Hotel (Korean: 류경호텔) (sometimes anglicised as Ryu-Gyong Hotel or Yu-Kyung Hotel) is an unfinished 105-storey pyramid-shaped skyscraper in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name ("capital of willows") is also one of the historical names for Pyongyang. The building is also known as the 105 Building, a reference to its number of floors.

Construction began in 1987 but was halted in 1992 as North Korea entered a period of economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union. After 1992 the building stood topped out, but without any windows or interior fittings. In 2008 construction resumed and the exterior was completed in 2011. A partial opening was planned for 2012 – and again for 2013 – but abandoned.

The building has been planned as a mixed-use development, which would include a hotel.

Architecture

The Ryugyong Hotel has a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), making it the most prominent feature of Pyongyang's skyline and by far the tallest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have held the title of world's tallest hotel. The unfinished building was not surpassed in height by any new hotel until the 2009 completion of the spire atop the Rose Tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Ryugyong Hotel is currently the world's 49th tallest building (alongside the China World Trade Center Tower III) in terms of total height and has the 7th highest number of floors.

North Korea

Coordinates: 40°00′N 127°00′E / 40.000°N 127.000°E / 40.000; 127.000

North Korea ( listen), officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국; hancha: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國; MR: Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk), is a country in East Asia, in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name Korea is derived from the Kingdom of Goguryeo, also spelled as Koryŏ. The capital and largest city is Pyongyang. North Korea shares a land border with China to the north and northwest, along the Amnok (Yalu) and Tumen rivers, and a small section of the Tumen River also forms a border with Russia to the northeast. The Korean Demilitarized Zone marks the boundary between North Korea and South Korea.

Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910. After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones by the United States and the Soviet Union, with the north occupied by the Soviets and the south by the Americans. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the Republic of Korea in the south. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950–53). Although the Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, no official peace treaty was ever signed. Both states were accepted into the United Nations in 1991.

Koryo Hotel

The Koryo Hotel is the second largest operating hotel in North Korea, the largest being the Yanggakdo Hotel. The Ryugyong Hotel is larger, but is not yet operating. The twin-towered Koryo Hotel building is 143 metres (469 ft) tall and contains 43 stories. Erected in 1985 under the scrutiny of Kim Il-sung, it was intended to "showcase the glory and strength of the DPRK."

The hotel is rated three stars by Western standards. North Korea rates it as five stars. A section of the hotel reportedly caught fire on 11 June 2015 due to undisclosed circumstances, leaving the bridge between the two buildings badly damaged.

Name

"Koryo" is the name of an early kingdom which is the source of the English name "Korea". It is also used in the name of the North Korean airline, Air Koryo.

The Koryo Hotel replaced an older hotel of the same name, but in a different location. For a time after 1946 the leader of North Korea's Democratic Party Cho Man-sik was kept under house arrest in the older Koryo Hotel.

North

North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. North is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word north is related to the Old High German nord, both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit ner-, meaning "down" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)

The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the son of the river-god Strymon, the father of Calais and Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Maior. The Greek arktikos is named for the same constellation, and is the derivation of the English word "Arctic".

Other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, "north" also means "up". In Hungarian the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north.

Pyongyang

Pyongyang (/ˈpjɒŋˈjæŋ/; (Chosŏn'gŭl: 평양; hancha: 平壤), Korean pronunciation: [pʰjʌŋjaŋ], literally: "Flat Land" or "Peaceful Land", approved: P’yŏngyang; several variants) is the capital of North Korea and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was split from the South Pyongan province in 1946. It is administered as a directly governed city (chikhalsi, 직할시) on the same level as provincial governments, not a special city (teukbyeolsi, 특별시) as Seoul in South Korea.

Names

"Pyongyang" literally means "Flat Land" in Korean. One of Pyongyang's many historic names is Ryugyong (류경; 柳京), or "capital of willows", as willow trees have always been numerous throughout the city's history; this served as an inspiration for many poems. Even today, the city has numerous willow trees, with many buildings and places having "Ryugyŏng" in their names. The most notable of these is the incomplete Ryugyong Hotel. The city's other historic names include Kisong, Hwangsong, Rakrang, Sŏgyong, Sodo, Hogyong, Changan, and Heijo (during Japanese rule in Korea). During the early 20th century, Pyongyang came to be known among missionaries as being the "Jerusalem of the East", due to its historical status as a stronghold of Christianity, namely Protestantism.