Ch'angdo County is a ''kun'', or county, in Kangwŏn province,

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

. Originally part of Kimhwa, it was split off as a separate county in 1952.

Geography

Ch'angdo lies to the west of the

Taebaek Mountains The Taebaek Mountains are a mountain range that stretches across North Korea and South Korea. They form the main ridge of the Korean peninsula. Geography The Taebaek mountains are located along the eastern edge of the peninsula and run along ...

, in the Ryŏngsŏ region of Kangwŏn, but is nonetheless quite rugged. The highest point is Okpatpong (옥밭봉), 1240 m above sea level. Ch'angdo lies just north of the

Korean Demilitarized Zone The Korean Demilitarized Zone ( Korean: ; Hanbando Bimujang Jidae) is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula near the 38th parallel north. The demilitarized zone (DMZ) is a border barrier that divides the peninsula roughly in ...

. The chief stream is the Pukhan River, which flows southward across the DMZ into

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

. Roughly 80% of the county's area is forestland.

Administrative divisions

Ch'angdo county is divided into 1 '' ŭp'' (town) and 16 '' ri'' (villages):

Economy

The chief local industry is agriculture, including

sericulture Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, '' Bombyx mori'' (the caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth) is the most widely used and intensively stud ...

and livestock farming. Lumbermills have also been developed, but there is little other industry. There are deposits of copper, zinc, nickel, and lead.

Transportation

Ch'angdo is connected to the rest of North Korea by road, but not by rail. Google Earth imagery from 2017 shows a newly constructed emergency highway landing strip for aircraft and is equipped with two aircraft parking

revetments A revetment in stream restoration, river engineering or coastal engineering is a facing of impact-resistant material (such as stone, concrete, sandbags, or wooden piles) applied to a bank or wall in order to absorb the energy of incoming water a ...

located to the north of Changdo city.

References

External links