Yanggakdo Hotel

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Yanggakdo Hotel

Korean name

Chosŏn'gŭl	양각도국제호텔
Hancha	羊角島國際호텔
McCune-Reischauer	Yanggakto Kukche Hot'el
Revised Romanization	Yanggakdo Gukje Hotel

The Yanggakdo International Hotel is one of the largest working hotels in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. The hotel is located on Yanggak Island, two kilometers to the south-east of the center of Pyongyang, the nation's capital. Its rises to an overall height of 170 meters and sports a slowly revolving restaurant on the 47th floor. The hotel is said to contains 1,000 rooms and a total floor space of 87,870 square meters. The entire structure is understood to have been built in the 1980s by a French company and opened in 1995.

The North Korean currency can be purchased at official rates at reception, and postcards and letters can be mailed from the desk next to it. Behind the latter, there is a small shop which sells basic commodities at western prices. The ground floor also contains small bar to the right of the main entrance, and to the left, a small bookshop which stocks a wide range of North Korean reading material including back-issues of the local English-language newspaper, the Pyongyang Times, treatises by the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, various children's books, and a wide range of material which describes the North Korean understanding of the history of the region.

In addition to the revolving restaurant, the hotel guide issued to all inmates indicates that the hotel contains four further restaurants on the second floor -- these include the numbers one and two dining-room, the main banquet hall and the Japanese, Chinese and Korean food dining-rooms.

The hotel's basement contains a bowling alley, a pool room, a swimming pool, a barbers, a casino and what is politely referred to as a "gentlemen's massage club" run by a Chinese company with an exclusively female staff.

The hotel's grounds include a 9,000 square meter nine-hole golf course^[1] and a cinema complex which appears to be largely unused.

The hotel is a standard stop on most tours of North Korea and was featured in the graphic novel Pyongyang.