Yanggakdo International Hotel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yanggakdo International Hotel
Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl 양각도국제호텔
Hancha 羊角島國際호텔
Revised Romanization Yanggakdo Gukje Hotel
McCune–Reischauer Yanggakto Kukche Hot'el

Yanggakdo International Hotel is the largest working hotel and the second tallest building in North Korea, after the Ryugyong Hotel. The hotel is located on Yanggak Island, two kilometres to the south-east of the centre of Pyongyang, the nation's capital. It rises to an overall height of 170 metres (560 ft) and has a slowly revolving restaurant on the 47th floor. The hotel is said to contain 1,000 rooms and a total floor space of 87,870 square metres (945,800 sq ft). The structure was built between 1986 and 1992 by France’s Campenon Bernard Construction Company and opened in 1995.

Background

Besides housing the reception, the ground floor offers the purchase of uncirculated North Korean currency sets, mail postcards and letters, and of basic commodities at Western prices. There is a bar, and a bookshop which stocks North Korean reading material including back-issues of the local English-language newspaper, the Pyongyang Times, treatises by Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, children's books and material which describes the North Korean understanding of the history of the region.

In addition to the revolving restaurant, the hotel guide issued to guests 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 basement contains a bowling alley, a pool room, a swimming pool, a barber shop, a casino and a massage club run by a Chinese company with an exclusively female staff.

The hotel's grounds originally included a 9,000 square metre nine-hole golf course which as of 2011 had been demolished to make space for a Chinese-funded health complex to be built.[1][2] Also on Yanggak Island, next to the hotel's grounds the Pyongyang International Cinema Hall can be found, which hosts the opening and closing ceremonies of the Pyongyang International Film Festival.

Yanggakdo International Hotel is a standard stop on tours of North Korea, and was featured in the graphic novel Pyongyang.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yanggakdo International Hotel.

  • The hotel seen from the top of Juche Tower

  • Front side of the hotel

  • Standard sized twin room

  • View from the hotel over Yanggak Island in August 2012

See also

References

  1. ↑ Sthankiya, Nayan. "North Koreans Eager to Play Golf as Well". Seoul Times. Retrieved 2007-05-23. 
  2. ↑ "Yanggakdo Golf Course is no more…". North Korean Economy Watch. Retrieved 2013-02-16. 

External links

Coordinates: 38°59′56.16″N 125°45′4.15″E / 38.9989333°N 125.7511528°E / 38.9989333; 125.7511528

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.